RF Switches, Scanners & Gates

Applications:

  • Switching GHz/Sub-Nanosecond Rise-Time Signals
  • Pulse Picking
  • Switching Low-Noise DC Signals
  • Microwave Scanner (Reflective)
  • Signal gating, routing, and multiplexing

Features:

  • Up to 3 GHz Usable Bandwidth
  • 50 Ω Impedance
  • Up to 46 dB isolation
  • 1.65 dB Insertion Loss (typ)
  • 6 ms Switching Time for relay-based switches
  • Propagation time as short as 1.3 ns for NECL AND Gate, 4 ns for TTL Gates
  • BNC or SMA I/O Connectors
  • Remote Control Option
  • +8.5 V AC/DC adapters included

Description:

PRL offers two families of products for switching and gating RF and logic signals:

Switches/Routers

Relay-based switch/scanner modules are designed for switching microwave and sub-nanosecond rise time signals in the 50 Ω environment. For reflective switches the unselected ports are not terminated into 50 Ω. Therefore a signal connected to the unselected port will be reflected. The reflective switch is intended mainly for routing a signal from one port to several destinations where not terminating the unselected port into 50 Ω is desirable. These modules can also be used as a scanners when not terminating the unselected ports is acceptable. 

Although all our relay-based switches are agnostic to signal type, several modules have termination features that are useful for specific logic types:

• For scanning ECL logic and clock signals, PRL offers absorptive switches. In these modules the unselected ports are terminated into 50 Ω/VTT. Because VTT varies by ECL family, there are three different models for NECL, PECL, and LVPECL.
• For scanning TTL logic and clock signals with a sampling scope PRL offers attenuating switches. In these modules the all ports are terminated into 50 Ω and the selected port is attenuated by 14 dB for compatibility with most sampling scopes.

    Switch/router modules are available with BNC or SMA I/O connectors and with rotary or toggle switches for manual output selection, plus TTL/CMOS compatible control input pins for remote control.

    Logic Gates

    PRL also offers logic gates. These modules can be used for signal gating, logic conversion, pulse picking, narrow pulse generation, and signal multiplexing, with switching speeds equivalent to the incoming data rates.

    Logic gates are family-specific, e.g. NECL or TTL, but are orders of magnitude faster than our relay-based products, with propagation times as short as 1.3 ns, and data rates as high as 2.5 GHz.

    Units are housed in an extruded aluminum enclosure and supplied with a +8.5 V AC/DC adapter.

    Product Selection Guide:

    * Maximum bandwidth is for SMA versions only. See specifications for BNC models' performance.