At IMS 2026, everything RF met Zelma Diaz, Vice President of Business Development at MPG, along with Applications Engineers Dave Pebbles and Jesus Cortez. At the company's booth, they introduced two new RF products designed to address key challenges in RF and microwave systems: a Stackable X-Band Switch Filter Bank that reduces system footprint and a new family of high-repeatability electromechanical RF switches designed for low-loss, long-life operation.
The first demonstration focused on MPG's Stackable X-Band Switch Filter Bank, a compact filtering solution that uses the Z-axis to stack multiple stripline filters within a single package. The architecture integrates both RF filters and switches into one assembly, enabling significant space savings while maintaining filter performance. The current design covers the 8 to 12 GHz X-band frequency range and incorporates eight four-pole stripline filters. The switch filter bank provides 5.5 dB insertion loss, 23 dBc ±10% rejection, 2 W power handling capability, and 100 ns switching speed. The company plans to expand the product family to cover frequencies from 1 to 20 GHz and introduce future versions with customizable footprints and filter performance tailored to specific application requirements.
Dave Pebbles explained how the vertical stacking approach reduces the overall footprint of RF subsystems without sacrificing filtering performance. By integrating eight stripline filters and switching functionality into a compact package, the solution is designed for RF and microwave platforms where size, weight, and packaging constraints are critical. The demonstration highlighted how advanced packaging techniques can help designers achieve greater system density while maintaining the filtering and switching performance required in modern RF applications.
In a second demonstration, Jesus Cortez introduced MPG's new high-repeatability electromechanical RF switch technology. The company showcased an SP12T switch configuration designed to provide low insertion loss, wide frequency coverage, and extended operational life for test and measurement, aerospace, defense, and communications systems. The switch family operates from DC to 27 GHz and is engineered for applications that require frequent switching while maintaining consistent RF performance.
During the demo, Cortez routed a signal through two SP12T switches and measured key RF parameters, including insertion loss (S21), to demonstrate the switch's low-loss performance. MPG stated that the SP12T switches are designed for up to 500 million switching cycles, while its SPDT terminated and unterminated switches have been tested beyond 15 million cycles, with some units reaching approximately 20 million cycles during testing. The demonstration highlighted how the combination of low insertion loss, DC-to-27-GHz operation, and extended switch life can benefit automated test equipment, RF switching networks, and other systems that rely on high-cycle switching performance.
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