2011 Highlights — Mark Schappler

As another year has come to a close and we reflect upon our accomplishments, our challenges and the value we seek to provide to our customers we want to be sure that we also take a moment to celebrate our success. We have worked  hard to achieve some lofty goals in 2011  while continuing to build up a solid infrastructure to support our growing pains.

To the credit of our staff, our on-time delivery and quality metrics steadily improved throughout 2011 and this trend extends to our suppliers as well. Our engineering team has been challenged with more new designs than ever in our history and our sales team increased our revenues by 38%. It's exciting to recognize what we've been able to accomplish as a team.

We've directed this success back into the company with recent improvements in the form of new capital equipment, facility upgrades and our investment in new talent. Having the right tools, methods and support to get our job done has had positive results in all of these measureable ways.

As we reflect on 2011 and prepare to better serve you in 2012, we will continue to add new capabilities, new products and build on the momentum we have gained over these past few years. Again we are grateful for your comments, support and suggestions for our improvement.

On behalf of all of us at TRM, we wish you a successful and Happy New Year.

Mark Schappler, TRM Microwave, COO

TRM Achieves Record Financial Performance – Revenues Increase by 38% — TJ Cole

The secret to TRM's success is our people. Without the dedication and commitment of our employees we would not have been able to achieve record breaking financials in 2011. While our shipments grew by 38% year over year to an all time high for our company, 24 % over previous levels, we're pleased to report that our book to ship ratio stayed greater than 1:1, again setting an all time bookings record. This is something we're very excited about as we look to our future and the opportunity to serve our customers.

We've been working in earnest on a strategy to grow TRM and increase sales since 2008 - so it's no surprise to us that as we closed out 2011, we have realized tangible benefits for our efforts. Our focus has been on building the right team of employees and sales reps to strengthen our core capabilities. Serving the customer, meeting our commitments, listening and communicating openly - this is what we do everyday.

Even as methods of communication are changing to accommodate email and instant messaging for example, our customers, reps and employees know that no matter the issue, we are accessible. We treat everybody with the respect they deserve and are continually building relationships based on integrity. We believe that the key to our success is our open, honest style of communication.

As our customers return year over year with greater electrical and mechanical challenges we have in turn reinvested in TRM's infrastructure. In 2011, along with welcoming Bill Dolloff as our dedicated Boeing program manager, we've added a new thermal shock chamber to our Quality Control department. Other improvements to the facility have also taken place as we strive to continually improve our on-time delivery and quality.

As we send a sincere Thank You to all of our customers, sales reps, employees and suppliers we'd like you to know that we look forward to serving you in 2012!

TJ Cole, TRM Microwave, Director of Sales

Engineering Corner — Ken Greenwood

Looking back on 2011, the engineering group was focused on some exciting improvements with our product performance capabilities and the design methodology used to achieve them.  To support these improvements we added three talented individuals to our engineering team including an RF/MW Design Engineer, Mechanical Engineer and Document Control Administrator.

The market place demand for wider bandwidths and low profile configurations continued to drive our design team to maximize efficiencies throughout all stages of the product’s life cycle. Understanding how to manipulate low frequency responses from ferrite designs and when to combine the higher frequency capabilities of multi-topology combinations using stripline, microstrip and/or airstrip allowed us to deliver some very challenging, custom designs to our customers. A great example of this is the development of our family of components in the 20 MHz – 3 GHz band. Working smarter overall has allowed us to increase capacity and respond to simultaneous, unique design challenges and deliver 38 new products in 2011. Nine of these new units are space qualified components that support a number of large programs including MexSat, Inmarsat, Spaceway 1, TDRS, MUOS and others for Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Additionally, we enhanced our design tools to provide more comprehensive modeling in both circuit design and mechanical characterizations that can be performed well before the preliminary design review. Engineering design and development methods have been formulated to provide thorough design evaluation while maintaining the efficiencies for fast prototyping and product realization. To promote our technical capabilities, we’ve published two white papers. Feedback on both white papers has been enthusiastic and we have several others currently underway.

Also in 2011, we’re honored to say, we hosted our first IEEE MTT-S meeting with Dr. James Komiak, from BAE Systems. Dr. Komiak presented a lecture on “Design and Performance of Microwave and Millimeter-wave High Efficiency Power Amplifiers”. This meeting had excellent attendance and has helped to boost local participation of the MTT-S events.

Looking forward to 2012 we’ll continue our research into bandwidth enhancing materials, further application of multilayer board methods to our passive designs and explore additional packaging and passive-design improvements to accommodate all platforms in space, airborne and ground based systems.

Ken Greenwood, TRM Microwave, Director of Engineering

16 Way Power Divider Covers 20 - 3000 MHz

Our DL162030 is a broadband, 16-way power divider that is well suited for radar and satellite-communications (satcom) applications from 20 to 3000 MHz. The reliable power divider is designed for systems requiring an even division of input power, providing signals at 16 output ports that are well balanced in amplitude and phase. The maximum amplitude balance is ±0.8 dB while the phase imbalance between output ports is ±10 deg. Isolation between output ports is at least 18 dB. The maximum input and output VSWR is 1.60:1. Model DL162030 is rated for CW input power levels to 20 W, and delivers output signals with maximum insertion loss of 4.5 dB. It is supplied in a rugged aluminum housing measuring 9.4 x 3.0 x 0.40 in. with SMA connectors. The power divider is designed for operating temperatures from -15 to +55°C. Download  Datasheet.

Ferrite Component Comparison Guide

This Ferrite Component Comparison Guide maps parts that may no longer be supported by other suppliers with the closest TRM match. If you do not see exactly what you are looking for TRM can build a custom power divider that will meet your requirements. Use this guide as a starting point. Download Ferrite Component Comparison Guide.

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