MEMS relays

[Hal Murray]

Vacuum tubes?

well, it must be small, i need plenty of them on PCB...
tubes have quite poor isolation for RF, and take too much space.
Their lifetime is also quite low - it must work for a few years.

In the (very) old days, tubes were used as amplifiers in
undersea cables so I expect their lifetime may be reasonable..

I remember a story about another undersea cable going in
after transistors were available. They used tubes because
they knew how long they would last but transistors hadn't
been around long enough to establish good lifetime data.

Anybody else remember that story?

--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

 

[Greg]

Your operating rate and desired lifetime imply an operating life of at
least
10^8 cycles, maybe more. Are you hot-switching? If so, how much
current?
this is just signal, short pulses, a a few ns.... a few tens of us max,

period - a few Hz

This is the death of relays, especially MEMS ones. And last
I heard MEMS relay lifetimes were still in the 10^7--10^8 range under
cold-switching conditions, so you may not find what you want just yet.
this would be acceptable

How about CMOS-on-Silicon? Does it still exist? It was developed
for military usage and space, so perhaps the radiation wouldn't be too
troublesome. You'd certainly get the operating reliability...

there is problem with voltage of a few tens V. And RF isulation is not

enough.
But possibly I have take them into account and possibly change conception of
signa llayout.

 

[Steve Goldstein]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 11:57:09 +0100, "Greg" <Grzegorz.Kasprowicz_usunto_@CERN.CH>
wrote:

The standard, electromechanical ones have too short lifetime for me - I
ned
to switch them at least once per second.Moreover, they will be exposed to
the radiation, so semiconductor ones would die quite soon. Another fact
is,
that voltage I need to switch is about 20..30V, sometimes up tp 100V.
So MEMS are the only alternative to reed relays that comes to my mind.
Any ideas?

Vacuum tubes?

well, it must be small, i need plenty of them on PCB...
tubes have quite poor isolation for RF, and take too much space.
Their lifetime is also quite low - it must work for a few years.

Your operating rate and desired lifetime imply an operating life of at least
10^8 cycles, maybe more. Are you hot-switching? If so, how much
current? This is the death of relays, especially MEMS ones. And last
I heard MEMS relay lifetimes were still in the 10^7--10^8 range under
cold-switching conditions, so you may not find what you want just yet.

How about CMOS-on-Silicon? Does it still exist? It was developed
for military usage and space, so perhaps the radiation wouldn't be too
troublesome. You'd certainly get the operating reliability...

Steve

 

[Greg]

The standard, electromechanical ones have too short lifetime for me - I
ned
to switch them at least once per second.Moreover, they will be exposed to
the radiation, so semiconductor ones would die quite soon. Another fact
is,
that voltage I need to switch is about 20..30V, sometimes up tp 100V.
So MEMS are the only alternative to reed relays that comes to my mind.
Any ideas?

Vacuum tubes?

well, it must be small, i need plenty of them on PCB...
tubes have quite poor isolation for RF, and take too much space.
Their lifetime is also quite low - it must work for a few years.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

"Greg" <Grzegorz.Kasprowicz_usunto_@CERN.CH> wrote in message
news:epcitv$3d8$1@cernne03.cern.ch...

The standard, electromechanical ones have too short lifetime for me - I
ned
to switch them at least once per second.Moreover, they will be exposed to
the radiation, so semiconductor ones would die quite soon. Another fact
is,
that voltage I need to switch is about 20..30V, sometimes up tp 100V.
So MEMS are the only alternative to reed relays that comes to my mind.
Any ideas?

Vacuum tubes?


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[Greg]

Hi
I'm looking for MEMS relays.
I found 3 manufactures who does such things: TeraVicta,Memtronics and some
other..I've written some mail to them, but till now - without response..
So I wander, if U know some other source of such components...

The standard, electromechanical ones have too short lifetime for me - I ned
to switch them at least once per second.Moreover, they will be exposed to
the radiation, so semiconductor ones would die quite soon. Another fact is,
that voltage I need to switch is about 20..30V, sometimes up tp 100V.
So MEMS are the only alternative to reed relays that comes to my mind.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Greg


---------------------------------------------------
Grzegorz Kasprowicz
CERN
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CH1211 Geneva 23
tel: +41227674930
fax: +41227678200
www.cern.ch
https://cern.ch/gkasprow/
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