Sub-Systems and Hi-Rel

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IF, RF and Microwave Hi-Rel General Information

In addition to its wide range of standard catalog products, Merrimac offers an impressive capability for designing and integrating various building blocks into highly capable, sophisticated sub-systems. This capability is applicable to military, scientific and commercial applications in terrestrial, maritime or aerospace environments.

For example, Merrimac has designed, produced and delivered sub-systems for research into sub-nuclear particles (quarks) and produced complete calibration assemblies for aircraft Instrument Landing Systems (JLS). With the rapid growth of digital transmission systems, demand for specialized Merrimac I & Q sub-systems has grown in proportion. As a result, Merrimac customers are afforded Merrimac in-house engineering talents as virtual extensions of their own in-house technical staff. This can be the basis of an exceptionally powerful team and can provide comprehensive solutions where technical and schedule challenges are formidable.

Hi-Rel Design Commitment

From its involvement with the first lunar landing project to contemporary satellite projects, Merrimac is consistently a pioneer in the development of high-reliability signal processing components. In the early 1960’s Merrimac designed the first method of compacting printed circuits. In 1967 the company’s IF signal processing components were first used on the TIROS weather satellites. Merrimac designed and produced components for the Voyager space probes that are still operating flawlessly many years later as they exit the our solar system decades after their launch! In 1972 a special stripline circuit was developed for use on the exterior of a spacecraft where the temperature extremes were dramatic. More recently, Merrimac C-band power dividers have flown on the AT&T Telstar 400 series of geosynchronous communications satellites. Programs such as these have helped establish Merrimac as a world leader in the design and manufacture of all types of high-reliability components and sub-assemblies.

Extended-Reliability Capabilities

Merrimac products are designed to meet the applicable U.S. and international, military and space specifications. For example, all mixers comply with MIL-M-28837. Certain models have been qualified and appear on the Qualified Parts List, "QPL Qualified", as seen in the last pages of Section 1 of this catalog. Merrimac provides its customers with extended reliability parts at large lot size prices since qualification, environmental test and screening processes are performed on the entire production lot instead of simply the customer’s purchased lot.

Merrimac products are specifically listed in various other contexts indicating qualification under a specific set of standards. Attenuators comply with MIL-A-242 I 5A, power dividers comply with MIL-P-2397 1 and directional couplers comply with MIL-C-15370. Reliability calculations such as Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) are performed in accordance with MIL-HDBK-2 1 7B. These calculations can be performed and supplied with the purchased components.

Merrimac always provides the highest reliability item possible consistent with its design, production and test in the context of a stocked, catalog item. For higher levels of reliability, Merrimac provides products with Hi-Rel connectors at an additional cost. Additional tests and services associated with Hi-Rd components (e.g., high- temperature bake, burn-in, temperature cycling, shake, shock and vibration, are all available on any component Merrimac offers.

Merrimac and ISO-9001

ISO-9000 is a worldwide standard administered by the International Standards Organization. In many cases it transcends national standards or has supplanted them entirely. As a result, compliance with ISO-9000 is de facto mandatory for electronic businesses dealing with the military, aerospace, scientific and industrial sectors.

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