A reed relay is a type of relay

Relay

A relay is an electrically operated switch. Many relays use an electromagnet to operate a switching mechanism mechanically, but other operating principles are also used. Relays are used where it is necessary to control a circuit by a low-power signal , or where several circuits must be controlled...

 that uses an electromagnet

Electromagnet

An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. The magnetic field disappears when the current is turned off...

 to control one or more reed switch

Reed switch

The reed switch is an electrical switch operated by an applied magnetic field. It was invented at Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1936 by W. B. Ellwood. It consists of a pair of contacts on ferrous metal reeds in a hermetically sealed glass envelope...

es. The contacts are of magnetic material and the electromagnet acts directly on them without requiring an armature to move them. Sealed in a long, narrow glass tube, the contacts are protected from corrosion

Corrosion

Corrosion is the disintegration of an engineered material into its constituent atoms due to chemical reactions with its surroundings. In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of metals in reaction with an oxidant such as oxygen...

, and are usually plated with silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

, which has very low resistivity but is prone to corrosion when exposed, rather than corrosion-resistant but more resistive gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 as used in the exposed contacts of high quality relays. Multiple reed switches can be inserted into a single bobbin

Bobbin

A bobbin is a spindle or cylinder, with or without flanges, on which wire, yarn, thread or film is wound. Bobbins are typically found in sewing machines, cameras, and within electronic equipment....

 and actuate simultaneously. Reed switches have been manufactured since the 1930s.

As the moving parts are small and lightweight, reed relays can switch much faster than relays with armatures http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/components/relay.htm. They are mechanically simple, making for reliability and long life.

Memory device

A few million reed relays were used from the 1930s to the 1960s for memory functions in Bell System

Bell System

The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT&T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a monopoly. In 1984, the company was broken up into separate companies, by a U.S...

 electromechanical telephone exchange

Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...

s. Often a multiple-reed relay was used, with one of the reeds latching the relay, and the other or others performing logic or memory functions. Most reed relays in the crossbar switch

Crossbar switch

In electronics, a crossbar switch is a switch connecting multiple inputs to multiple outputs in a matrix manner....

ing systems of the 1940s through the 1970s were packaged in groups of five. Such a "reed pack" was able to store one decimal digit, encoded in a two-out-of-five code

Two-out-of-five code

In telecommunication, a two-out-of-five code is an m of n code that provides exactly ten possible combinations, and thus is popular for representing decimal digits using five bits...

 (74210 variant) for easy validity checking by wire spring relay

Wire spring relay

A wire spring relay is a type of relay, primarily manufactured by the Western Electric Company for use by the Bell System in electromechanical telephone exchanges. It was licenced for use around the world, and was commonplace in Japan...

 logic.

Crosspoint switch

In the Bell System Stored Program Control exchange

Stored Program Control exchange

Stored Program Control exchange is the technical name used for telephone exchanges controlled by a computer program stored in the memory of the system. Early exchanges such as Strowger, panel, rotary, and crossbar switches were electromechanical and had no software control...

 systems of the 1970s, reed relays were no longer needed for data storage, but tens of millions of them were packaged in arrays for voice path switching. In the 1ESS switch

1ESS switch

The Number One Electronic Switching System, the first large-scale Stored Program Control telephone exchange or Electronic Switching System in the Bell System, was introduced in Succasunna, New Jersey, in May 1965. The switching fabric was composed of reed matrixes controlled by wire spring relays...

, the cores were made of a magnetically remanent

Remanence

Remanence or remanent magnetization is the magnetization left behind in a ferromagnetic material after an external magnetic field is removed. It is also the measure of that magnetization. Colloquially, when a magnet is "magnetized" it has remanence...

 alloy, so the relay could latch magnetically instead of latching electrically. This "Ferreed" method reduced power consumption and allowed both contacts to be used for voice path. The coils were wired for coincident current selection similar to a magnetic core memory

Magnetic core memory

Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years . It uses tiny magnetic toroids , the cores, through which wires are threaded to write and read information. Each core represents one bit of information...

, so operating the contacts for one crosspoint would release the other crosspoints in its row and column.

Each input of the array had, besides the two talk wires, a P lead for controlling the crosspoints on that level. Two coils on each crosspoint were wired in series with all the others on that level, to the P lead. Each output of the array also had a P lead with two coils on each crosspoint of that output level. The two windings controlled by the same level were unequal, and were wound around opposite ends of the reed, in opposing polarity. When a pulse passed through the crosspoints of a level, the two ends of each reed were magnetized north to north or south to south, thus repelled each other and opened the crosspoint in all except the selected crosspoint.

The selected crosspoint had current passing through both its input P lead and its output P lead, thus through all four windings. On each end of the ferreed, the windings provided by the two different P leads were opposed to each other, and the greater one predominated when both were energized. This being the input P lead at one end of the ferreed, and the output P lead at the other end, the two ends of that particular ferreed were magnetized north to south, hence attracted each other and closed the contact. Current was applied by the pulser only to set up the connection. The P leads remained dry and the crosspoint remained closed until such time as another connection was made involving one of the levels.

Because the individual crosspoints were more expensive than those of crossbar switch

Crossbar switch

In electronics, a crossbar switch is a switch connecting multiple inputs to multiple outputs in a matrix manner....

es, while the control circuitry was cheaper, reed arrays usually had fewer crosspoints and were more numerous. This required them to be arranged in more stages. Thus, while a telephone call in a typical crossbar exchange like 5XB passed through four switches, a call in a reed system such as 1ESS typically passed through eight.

In the later 1AESS, the reeds themselves were of remnant magnetic material. This "Remreed" design allowed further reduction in size and power consumption. A "grid" of 1024 2-wire crosspoints, arranged as two stages of eight 8x8 switches, was permanently packaged in a box. Despite the sealed contacts, plating with silver rather than with precious metals resulted in reed arrays being less reliable than crossbar switches. When one crosspoint failed, the grid box was quickly replaced whole, and either repaired at a local workbench or shipped to a repair shop.

Stromberg-Carlson

Stromberg-Carlson

Stromberg-Carlson was a telecommunications equipment and electronics manufacturing company formed in 1894 as a partnership of Alfred Stromberg and Androv Carlson. Along with four other companies, it controlled the United States national supply of telephone equipment until after World War...

 made the similar ESC system, whose reeds were called crossreed.

Reed relays were extensively used in the British TXE

TXE

TXE, which stands for Telephone eXchange Electronic, was the designation given to a family of telephone exchanges developed by the British General Post Office , now BT, designed to replace the ageing Strowger systems....

 family of telephone exchanges.

Other uses

Reed arrays passed out of use in the mid-1990s, being unnecessary in true electronic (digital) telephone systems such as DMS-100

DMS-100

The DMS-100 Switch is a line of Digital Multiplex System telephone exchange switches manufactured by Nortel Networks.The purpose of the DMS-100 Switch is to provide local service and connections to the PSTN public telephone network. It is designed to deliver services over subscribers' telephone...

 and 5ESS switch

5ESS Switch

The 5ESS Switch is a Class 5 telephone electronic switching system sold by Alcatel-Lucent. This digital central office telephone circuit switching system is used by many telecommunications service providers.-History:...

. Reed relays have continued in their uses outside the telephone industry such as for automatic test equipment

Automatic test equipment

Automatic or Automated Test Equipment is any apparatus that performs tests on a device, known as the Device Under Test , using automation to quickly perform measurements and evaluate the test results...

 and electronic instrumentation

Electronic instrumentation

Electronic instrumentation refers to measuring instruments used to measure the properties of electrical devices.Electronics Instrumentation is a subject which deals with various types of electrical instruments with their functionality and operation....

 due to their hermetic seal

Hermetic seal

A hermetic seal is the quality of being airtight. In common usage, the term often implies being impervious to air or gas. When used technically, it is stated in conjunction with a specific test method and conditions of usage.-Etymology :...

, fast operate time, extended life to 10⁹ operations and highly consistent contact performance. Reed relays have also found numerous applications in RF and microwave

Microwave

Microwaves, a subset of radio waves, have wavelengths ranging from as long as one meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. This broad definition includes both UHF and EHF , and various sources use different boundaries...

switching applications.

External links

Advanced information about Reed Switches

List of over 50 reed relay manufacturers