Circuit Response
every model has an edge, and the figure carries it
Concept

Off isolation — where it appears

How little of a signal an open switch lets through, set by the leakage resistance and the capacitance across it. It falls a decade per decade above that capacitance's corner, and how far it falls depends on where the leaked current lands: in the load, on a closed channel, or on a shunt switch.

Named by 8 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

Where a switch is a switch: a band, and the 6.43 MHz at which it closes. computed by solving, not by drawing. A switch of 0.5 Ω closed, 100 MΩ open and 5 pF across it is within 1.0% of being ideal only for loads between 49.5 Ω and 1.01 MΩ — 4.31 decades, and both edges are the same part. The upper edge is a frequency as well as a resistance, because the off-capacitance shunts the open switch: it falls a decade per decade above 318 Hz and meets the lower edge at 6.43 MHz, where the band closes and no load at all will do. Checked by scanning every load at 1.3 times that frequency and finding the best possible error to be 1.17%.

A band rather than an edge

Every other boundary in this collection is one-sided: a model is true below a frequency, or below an amplitude. A switch is a switch only for loads between 49.5 ohms and 1.01 megohms — bounded at both ends by the same part — and the upper end is a frequency as well as a resistance, so the band narrows as the frequency rises and shuts completely at 6.43 megahertz, above which no load resistance at all will do.

limits · Ideal switch A hold capacitor's band closes at 6.43 MHz, where a resistor's does. computed by solving, not by drawing. The switch of 0.5 Ω closed, 100 MΩ open and 5 pF across it, driving a capacitor. The lower edge is the smallest capacitance onto which the open switch feeds through no more than 1%: 495 pF far above 318 Hz, rising as the reciprocal of frequency below it because the leakage charges the capacitor. The upper edge is the largest capacitance the closed switch tracks to 1%, counted as a vector. The two meet at 6.43 MHz; a resistor on the same switch closes at 6.43 MHz, and counted as a magnitude the capacitor's band closes at 91.6 MHz. At the closure the closed switch's phase is 0.57 degrees.

The width no load can change

A switch's band was drawn against a load resistor and closed at 6.43 megahertz. Put a hold capacitor where the resistor was and the band changes axis and shape — a diagonal below 318 hertz, a floor of 495 picofarads above it — and stays exactly as wide: 1.8083 decades at 100 kilohertz for both loads, closing at 6.43 megahertz for both. Count the capacitor's error as a magnitude, as the resistor's always was, and the band appears to stay open to 91.6 megahertz. That extra room is 8.11 degrees of lag the count cannot see.

limits · Ideal switch Where 8 channels leak to: 91.0 MHz from buffered sources, 901 kHz from 50 Ω. computed by solving, not by drawing. The frequency at which the open channels of a multiplexer built from the 0.5 Ω, 100 MΩ, 5 pF switch leak 1% of the signal onto the shared output, against the impedance of the source driving the selected channel, into 1 MΩ. 2 channels: 637 MHz buffered, 6.30 MHz from 50 Ω; 8 channels: 91.0 MHz buffered, 901 kHz from 50 Ω; 16 channels: 42.4 MHz buffered, 420 kHz from 50 Ω. Each falls as the reciprocal of the source impedance plus the on-resistance, and the single switch's own band closes at 6.43 MHz.

Where an open switch leaks to

A lone switch has a band whose width no load can change, because its open state leaks into the load. In a multiplexer the seven open channels leak into a node the selected channel holds, so the load leaves the answer and the source takes its place: one per cent of leak at 91.0 megahertz from buffered sources and 901 kilohertz from fifty ohms, moving as the first power of the tolerance rather than the second. Adding the channels' capacitance into one forty-picofarad switch puts it at 804 kilohertz, near the fifty-ohm figure by coincidence and a hundred and thirteen times low for a buffered one.

limits · Ideal switch From 50 Ω into 50 Ω: a T isolates to 643 MHz, a changeover to 6.34 MHz. computed by solving, not by drawing. The fraction of the drive that arrives with the path open, against frequency, from a 50 Ω source into 50 Ω, for the 0.5 Ω, 100 MΩ, 5 pF switch used three ways. A T reaches 1% at 643 MHz; a changeover reaches 1% at 6.34 MHz; one switch reaches 1% at 3.18 MHz.

The capacitance a third switch moves

A changeover's open channel leaks into the source of the channel that is closed, so its isolation into fifty ohms falls from 643 megahertz with a buffered source to 6.34 megahertz with a fifty-ohm one. Put a third switch to ground between two series switches and the leak lands on half an ohm of closed switch instead: 814, 643 and 2,240 megahertz from sources of nothing, fifty ohms and a kilohm, rising forty decibels a decade where a changeover's rises twenty. The price is the shunt switch's own capacitance, moved under the closed path, which makes the T one per cent wrong as a waveform at 6.59 megahertz beside the changeover's 6.61.

limits · Ideal switch One switch is never better than 70.71 ppm; a T of three reaches 10 ppb only into 200 MΩ. computed by solving, not by drawing, at direct current. The worse of a switch's two errors — closed, the fraction the load fails to receive; open, the fraction it receives anyway — against the load, for one 0.5 Ω, 100 MΩ switch and for a T of three, from a buffered source. The lone switch is best at 7.07 kΩ, the geometric mean of its two resistances, where both errors are 70.71 ppm, 13.79 bits: no load does better. The T has no best load. Its worse error falls with the load towards Rₒₙ/(Rₒₙ + Rₒff) = 5 ppb, the square of the lone switch's resistance ratio rather than its root; it is within twice that from 200 MΩ, it passes the lone switch's floor only above 14.1 kΩ, and into 7.07 kΩ it is 141.4 ppm, worse than one switch. Solved on the network up to 1000 MΩ and continued, dashed, from the closed form it matches.

The floor below any load

A switch of half an ohm closed and a hundred megohms open is within one per cent of ideal for loads between two edges, and the edges close on each other as the tolerance tightens. At direct current they meet at 70.71 parts per million, into 7.07 kilohms: no load makes that switch better, which is 13.79 bits and a boundary with no frequency in it. A T of three such switches has no best load at all. Its error falls with the load towards five parts per billion — the square of the lone switch's resistance ratio rather than its root — and reaches ten only into two hundred megohms. Into the 7.07 kilohms that suited one switch, the T is worse than one switch.

limits · Ideal switch The best shunt switch for a T is 3.8×, 0.33×, 0.082× a series switch from sources of 0 Ω, 50 Ω, 1 kΩ. computed by solving, not by drawing. The frequency at which the band of a T closes — where no load leaves it within 1% of ideal in both states, the closed state counted as a shortfall in amplitude — against the size of its shunt switch, as a multiple of the 0.5 Ω, 100 MΩ, 5 pF series switches, with every conductance and the capacitance scaled together. From a 0 Ω source the band closes latest with a shunt 3.775 times the series switch, at 2.40 GHz, against 702 MHz with three identical switches — 3.42 times later. From a 50 Ω source the band closes latest with a shunt 0.325 times the series switch, at 243 MHz, against 89.8 MHz with three identical switches — 2.71 times later. From a 1 kΩ source the band closes latest with a shunt 0.082 times the series switch, at 59.4 MHz, against 4.53 MHz with three identical switches — 13.12 times later. A larger shunt holds the open node harder and hangs more capacitance on the closed path, and the source decides where the two meet.

The shunt switch the source sizes

A T is two series switches and a third to ground, and it is always drawn with three of the same part. The shunt switch pulls its own size two ways: larger, it holds the open node harder; larger, it hangs more capacitance on the closed path. The size at which the band closes latest is a balance of the two — the fourth root of 2/ε times √(Rₒₙ/(Rₛ + Rₒₙ)) — when the closed state is counted as an amplitude — 3.8 times a series switch from a buffered source, a third of one from fifty ohms, a twelfth from a kilohm — and it buys a band 3.4, 2.7 and 13 times wider. Counted as a waveform the root of ε goes, and from a buffered source the best shunt is exactly the series switch.

limits · Ideal switch An on-resistance 10% highest at mid-range: 74.16 ppm uncalibrated, 13.89 ppm once the straight line is removed. computed by solving, not by drawing, at direct current, at 41 levels across the range. A 0.5 Ω, 100 MΩ switch whose on-resistance moves by 10%, highest at mid-range, against the load. Uncalibrated, the worse of its closed error at the worst level and its open leak is least at 7.42 kΩ, 74.16 ppm — 13.72 bits, the lone switch's floor at its largest on-resistance, against 70.71 ppm for a constant one. With the gain and offset calibrated away, what is left of the closed error is the curvature, and against the leak it is least at 1.39 kΩ: 13.89 ppm, 16.14 bits.

The resistance that bends the signal

A switch of half an ohm and a hundred megohms has a floor of 70.71 parts per million, 13.79 bits, because its on-resistance and its off-resistance cannot both be small beside one load. Most of that floor is a gain error, and a gain error calibrates away. Give the on-resistance a realistic ten per cent of movement across the signal range and the uncalibrated floor slips to 74.16 parts per million, while the part no calibration can touch — the curvature — balances the leak at 13.89 parts per million, 16.14 bits, into 1.39 kilohms. The floor was never set by the on-resistance. It is set by how much the on-resistance moves, as its square root.

limits · Ideal switch With 100 pA of junction leakage at 25 °C, a T keeps 2.8 bits over one switch and loses them all by 91 °C. computed by solving, not by drawing, at direct current, at every five kelvin from 0 to 150 °C. The floor — the least worse-of-two error any load gives — of a 0.5 Ω, 100 MΩ switch alone and as a T of three, from a buffered source, with a junction leakage of 100 pA at 25 °C on every terminal, doubling every 10 K, the worse sign taken. At 25 °C the lone switch's floor is 71.06 ppm (13.78 bits) and the T's 9.998 ppm (16.61 bits). The T is worse than one switch above 91.4 °C, where the junction current equals the off-resistance's conductance at one volt. The lone switch drops below 13 bits at 101.3 °C and below 12 at 125.9 °C; the T below 16 at 37.2 °C.

The leak no switch can hold

A T of three switches reaches five parts per billion because its shunt switch holds the node a leak has to cross. A junction leakage does not cross anything: it flows out of the outer switch's terminal straight into the load. With 100 picoamperes of it at 25 °C, doubling every ten kelvin, the T's floor is 9.998 parts per million rather than five parts per billion — 16.61 bits, not 27.6 — and it has a best load again, at 100 kilohms. A lone switch loses nothing at room temperature. Above 91.4 °C, where the junction current reaches the off-resistance's conductance at one volt, the T is worse than one switch.

limits · Ideal switch

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Design tradeoffLoadingModel rangeOn-resistanceParasiticsQuadratureSource impedanceCrosstalkElectrical lengthLeakage currentLinearisationLumped-element

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