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Microwave and Rf are electromagnetic waves, the difference between them is only in the wavelength of the wave.
* Microwave has a wavelength 1meter to 1millimeter
i.e: from 300MHz to 300GHz.
Short for Radio Frequency, any frequency within the electromagnetic spectrum associated with radio wave propagation. We can say that the microwave band it's contained in the RF band of frequency. Mirowave it is a term loosely applied to those radio frequency wavelengths which are sufficiently short to exhibit some of the properties of light. Commonly used for frequencies from about 1 GHz to 30 GHz.
D.Pozar in "Microwave Engineering" defines microwaves as AC signal with frequencies between 300MHz to 300GHz. Moreover frequency range from 3MHz to 300MHz is considered as RF. But this definition argues with manuals like "RF Microelectronics" (Razavi) where RF is applied to 1~2GHz frequency band.
Microwave technique is based on distributed components: length of microstrip line or waveguide compare with spreading signal wavelength and so on. In RF technique we consider only lumped components.
So, if you are designing CMOS IC transceiver for Bluetooth standard (2.4GHz) what is that? RF or microwave? RF rather than microwave.
In the early days RF was low enough frequency to use lumped elements and TEM transmission lines as circuit elements. Microwave used waveguides. Now that surface mount parts are so small they are used in the old microwave frequency region. Another difference in the old days was that RF used grids in the valves/tubes and microwave used transit time effect valves like magnetrons and klystrons.
I suspect these days the difference is whether you need to take precautions with the lines between parts. In microwave their impedance and length is important to circuit performance. In RF they are not.
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