The aim of this special issue covering APMC 2008 is to present some of the advances made on selected papers subsequent to their presentation at the conference. It also highlights the advances that the microwave industry has made recently in the Asia Pacific region and also around the world. Although it is an Asia Pacific conference, this just refers to its geographic hosting and like other international conferences is open to all. Because of its geographical hosting, many papers are from the Asia Pacific region but from the submission of papers, it is evident that the conference is truly international.
APMC was first held in a small room in New Delhi in 1986, followed by China in 1988, then in Japan in 1990. Thereafter, the conference was held annually, in different locations around the region. From its humble beginnings, no one could have dreamed of its transformation into one of the world's top three international conferences in microwave technology. Its profile has been raised coincident with the emergence of China as an economic powerhouse with recent attendance numbering over a 1000 delegates. Different from previous conferences, the 2008 conference was held in the Convention Centre in Hong Kong for the first 4 days and in the Venetian hotel in Macau for the last day and a half with some overlap. This is the second time that the conference has been held in Hong Kong, the first being in 1997, the year that marked the return of Hong Kong to China. APMC has changed much in the intervening 11 years, with 2008 being much bigger requiring nine parallel sessions over 3 days. This was concluded on December 20th with talks by eminent scholars, IEEE distinguished lecturers, and two other sessions on 60 GHz systems and advances in small and mobile antennas.
The microwave industry in Asia has changed dramatically in recent years, fuelled mainly by the dramatic rise of the wireless communications industry covering mobile radio, global positioning system, wireless local area network, Bluetooth, and the coming of WiMax and 4G amongst many others. What once was a small or niche market has become a mass consumer market helping to push technology even further. The push for innovative work within limited boundaries has now been transformed, to one with unseeingly limitless boundaries with China's huge population and potential. What once was a region dominated by Japan in research with the rest more known for original equipment manufacturing (OEM) has slowly changed in the past two decades. From OEM, China has traversed through original design manufacturing to the forefront of research.
A special issue covering active, passive, and microwave systems in APMC 2008 shows the international flavor of the conference. Out of the over 800 papers presented at the conference, just over 300 papers were invited for consideration. Eighty-one papers were submitted for this special issue, updated with new contributions, ideas or clarifications subsequent to its presentation in the conference. Forty-eight papers were finally accepted covering noteworthy topics in the frequency ranging from GHz to THz.