Press Release

Menlo Micro Announces the Release to Production of its MM5130, the World’s Highest Power Density RF Switch

November 18, 2020
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The MM5130, with 4 channels, 25W power handling and DC-26GHz operation in a miniaturized surface-mount package, brings major improvements to insertion loss, power handling, and linearity.

IRVINE, Calif., November 18, 2020

Menlo Microsystems, Inc. (Menlo Micro) the company responsible for re-inventing the electronic switch, announced the production release of the MM5130, the first high performance RF switch manufactured with their proprietary Ideal SwitchTM technology.

The MM5130 is designed to handle 25W 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 its Ideal SwitchTM 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.

                           MM5130 Electromechanical RF
Relays (SMT) SPDT
Power Handling 25 W (CW) > 150W <25 W
Max Frequency 26 GHz 6 GHz
Insertion Loss 1.3dB at 18 GHz 0.8 dB at 6GHz
Size 5.6 mm3 1280 mm3
Switching Speed <10 µs 3-5 ms
Reliability >3B Operations <10M Operations

 

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 SwitchTM 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 SwitchTM continues to grow.”

“We are very excited to announce that the MM5130, and more importantly our Ideal SwitchTM manufacturing line, is ready for production,”
 Chris Giovanniello, Co-founder and SVP Marketing, Menlo Micro

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

To serve customers around the world, Menlo Micro has established a global network of sales representatives and channel partners, which can be accessed at menlomicro.com/contact-us.

Learn more about Menlo Micro’s Ideal SwitchTM technology, the MM5130, and other products at www.menlomicro.com.

About Menlo Micro 

Menlo Micro is headquartered in Irvine, California, with a design center in Albany, NY and support offices globally.  Menlo Micro has created an entirely new category of electronic switches, with its Ideal SwitchTM. The Ideal SwitchTM eliminates compromises and tradeoffs by combining the benefits of electromechanical and solid-state switches into the best of both worlds.  Menlo is bringing greater than 99 percent reductions in size, weight, power, and cost to dozens of industries such as medical, aerospace and defense, telecommunications, consumer electronics, industrial IoT, and test and measurement. For more information, visit www.menlomicro.com or follow the company on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

Media Contact 
Caroline Beckmann – Trident DMG
(202) 440-1783
cbeckmann@tridentdmg.com  

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