Reed Relays Are a Key Component in Testing Integrated Circuits

Introduction

Chip designers continue to develop new integrated circuits that are smaller, faster acting and have more switching gates. These millions of gates per chip all need to be tested for satisfactory operation. Test equipment, some of which costs millions of dollars, are designed to test these chips on a 24 hour and 7 day basis. Because there are so many gates to be tested, test speed is essential. The tester needs to incorporate switches in the tester to isolate all points, and be able to carry the information using fast pulses. These fast pulses are in the picosecond range allowing billions of bits of information to be transferred per second. These switches used in the tester have to be carefully selected making sure they can switch and carry these fast pulses without distortion and operate in a reliable manner for billions of operations. Test equipment designers have found that Standex Electronics’s specially designed ultra small relay series capably accomplishes the task for billions of operations.

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