Signal Routing
There are two types of switches typically used in switch matrices: Coaxial Electromechanical Switches and Solid State Switches, also known as electronic switches. Coaxial electromechanical switches can be further divided into two categories based on their architecture, latching relay and non-latching relay.
Solid state switches come in three types: PIN diode, FET, and hybrid. The advantages of solid state switches over EM switches are:
- They have much faster switching speed (at least 10,000 times faster)
- They have an almost infinite life
- They are very stable and repeatable
On the other hand, since solid state switches have non-linear portions over their frequency range their bandwidth is limited.
An electronic switch (EM) provides better:
- insertion loss
- VSWR
- power handling
- isolation specifications.
For these reasons EM switches are used much more often in switch matrix designs.
Read more about this topic: RF Switch Matrix
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