What to Look for at IMS 2026
If there’s a sure sign of spring (other than bad New York Mets baseball), it’s the arrival of the wireless industry’s premier gathering: the IEEE International MTT Symposia (IMS). 2026’s Microwave Week takes place at Boston’s Thomas M. Menino Convention & Exhibition Center (MCEC) from June 7 to 12. Let me give you a brief rundown of some of the goings-on at the event.
It’s worth noting that what was once known as the IEEE International Microwave Symposium has been redubbed the IEEE International Microwave Theory and Technology (MTT) Symposia to align the conference with the IEEE’s Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S). Also note that it’s now “Symposia” (plural), because IMS is in fact an umbrella encompassing four distinct sub-symposiums:
- The RF Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium
- The inaugural RF Systems and Applications (RFSA) Symposium
- The inaugural RF Technology and Techniques (RFTT) Symposium
- The Automatic Radio Frequency Techniques Group (ARFTG) Microwave Measurements Conference
A Full Slate of Workshops and Bootcamps
If you can get to Boston by Sunday, June 7, you’re in luck: As it does each year, the conference offers a wide variety of workshops and bootcamps to get you up to speed on emerging technologies. Here’s a sampling of titles listed just for Sunday (there’s more of them throughout the week):
- Advanced RF to Sub-THz Frequency Generation: Oscillators, Frequency Multipliers, and their Applications
- Beamforming Architectures and Circuits for Next-Generation Commercial and Defense Systems
- Dare to Dream—The Path to True Battery-less Radios
- Microwave Quantum Engineering: From Methods to Hardware and Algorithms
- Taming Multi-Beam Arrays: Emerging Architectures, Algorithms, and Applications
- The Next Frontier in Radar Systems
All workshops are led by industry experts from academia, national laboratories, and key R&D people from leading commercial vendors. There are also bootcamps on topics such as quantum technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), wireless power transfer, and phased arrays.
The Microwave Industry’s Premier Technical Program
So many interesting session tracks are on tap this year that it’s hard to single any out, but here’s a short rundown of what you can expect in the various sub-groupings:
- RFIC’s program has 29 technical sessions including a Monday lunch panel. It kicks off on Sunday with 11 workshops, a technical lecture, a plenary session, and a reception. It’ll wind up on Tuesday with a student-industry networking event (5:00-7:30 pm, MCEC, Room 259AB) at which bright young aspiring engineers can get together with industry leaders. Who knows? Internships and/or job interviews can start here.
- RFSA’s first symposium provides two full days of technical sessions, with communications-centric content on Tuesday and sensors-centric content on Wednesday. Workshops will be happening all week, featuring three all-day workshops on Thursday focusing on quantum, AI, and sustainability.
- Also in its first year, RFTT’s program renews IMS’s core tradition by focusing on microwave passive and active components, packaging, discrete circuits, computer-aided design (CAD), and computational electromagnetics. Workshops on Sunday and Monday delve into power amps, quantum, packaging, AI, and space. The core technical sessions run from Tuesday through Thursday.
Don’t Miss the IMS Exhibition Floor
Most IMS attendees come looking to learn, and that’s the crux of the technical program But you can learn a great deal by strolling around the exhibition floor, too.
You can’t walk 10 feet without finding an eye-catching technology demonstration or array of interesting new products that might just fit your next project. It’s where editors like me tend to spend most of our time. I’ll be the guy with a tripod meeting with vendors and shooting videos of their demo stations.
Networking Opportunities Abound
Another key draw at IMS is the numerous opportunities to network with your peers, old/new friends, and prospective employers/employees. Here are a few of the main events:
- RFIC Welcome Reception and Showcase (Sunday, 7:30-9:00 pm, Westin Boston Seaport Hotel)
- IMS Welcome Reception (Monday, 8:00-9:30 pm, View Boston, Prudential Center)
- Women in Microwaves Reception (Tuesday, 6:30-8:30 pm, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston)
- Young Professionals Reception (Tuesday, 6:30-8:30 pm, Flight Club, Seaport neighborhood)
It goes without saying that there’s something at IMS for everyone in any/all facets of our highly diverse wireless industry. If you’re planning to attend, it’s more than worth the time and effort to get to Boston.
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About the Author
David Maliniak
Executive Editor, Microwaves & RF
I am Executive Editor of Microwaves & RF, an all-digital publication that broadly covers all aspects of wireless communications. More particularly, we're keeping a close eye on technologies in the consumer-oriented 5G, 6G, IoT, M2M, and V2X markets, in which much of the wireless market's growth will occur in this decade and beyond. I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, developers, and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.
You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our contributor's packet, in which you'll find an article template and lots more useful information on how to properly prepare content for us, and send to me along with a signed release form.
About me:
In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy, leaving to rejoin the EOEM B2B publishing world in January 2020. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.
