Menlo Microsystems, Inc. announced the production release of the MM5130, the first high performance RF switch manufactured with their proprietary Ideal Switch technology.

The MM5130 is designed to handle 25 W with ultra-low losses, in a miniaturized wafer-level chip-scale-package (WL-CSP). Historically, this level of performance has been reserved for large RF mechanical relays, which have major drawbacks. With their Ideal Switch technology, Menlo Micro has eliminated the compromises that engineers have had to make when selecting between RF mechanical relays and solid-state switches. The MM5130 offers the power handling and RF performance of an electromechanical relay (compared below), with the size, reliability and speed of a solid-state switch.

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These improvements make the MM5130 switch a very attractive solution for a multitude of applications including low loss switched filter banks, tunable filters, step attenuators and even beam steering antennas for a variety of radio architectures in both commercial and military communications networks. The high-channel density and low losses also make the MM5130 ideal for ultra-compact switch matrices for test and measurement applications.

“We are very excited to announce that the MM5130, and more importantly our Ideal Switch manufacturing line, is ready for production,” said Menlo Micro co-founder and SVP Marketing, Chris Giovanniello. “With this milestone, companies will begin to realize our vision of massive reductions in the size, weight, and power across a wide variety of RF subsystems. With over 30 customer design-ins to date for the MM5130 in 5G, aerospace & defense, and test & measurement applications, the number of companies taking advantage of the unique performance benefits of the Ideal Switch continues to grow.”

Menlo Micro spent the last 30 months completing the transfer and qualification of its Ideal Switch manufacturing process, moving from a 4-in. research fab to a new 8-in. high volume manufacturing line. This allows the company to significantly increase its capacity to millions of units per month in 2021.