Electronic Components with Analog switch IC’s

Analog switch ICs have slowly turned popular among the designers for their high efficiency and functionality. IC’s or integrated circuits are broadly of two types:

• Analog integrated circuits
• Digital integrated circuits. 

Analog switch IC is integrated circuit that allows electric current to flow when closed and restrict when open. The analog (or analogue) switch, also called the bilateral switch, is an electronic component that behaves in a similar way to a relay, but has no moving parts. Analog switch ICs are used for commercial, industrial as well as military purposes as they are widely used in various analog switch IC electronic components. These IC switches are also used to interface analog signals to digital controllers.

Hundreds of analog switch IC manufacturers provide various types of analog switch ICs differing in resistance, switching speeds, power consumption, packages and which may or may not be RoHS compliant. The market is flooded with hundred of variants of analog switch integrated circuits.

If you search for analog switch ICs you can find various types of analog switch ICs such as Single pole, single throw (SPST) switches, Single pole, double throw (SPDT) switches, Double pole, single throw (DPST) switches, Double pole, double throw (DPDT) switches, Single pole, three throw (SP3T) switches, Single pole, four throw (SP4T) switches and many other unlisted switches. Analog switch IC’s which meet up the military specifications are called as often called a MIL-SPEC and those which meet up the military standards are known as MIL-STD.

Application and market trend

Analog switches are used in various applications such as cell phone, PDA, digital camera, notebook, LCD monitor, TV and set-top box. Though it was expected that the European market crunch might affect the electronic component market as well, it doesn’t seem that it could create much of trouble.

Owing to wide use of analog switches for various applications as already mentioned, the market for the analog switch IC still seems to be strong. And it appears that various innovations in design and functionality of these analog switches will not let the hopes of the analog switch IC manufacturers.