US Patent Issued to Murata Manufacturing on March 18 for "Phase-change material switches" (Illinois, California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,253,550, issued on March 18, was assigned to Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan).

"Phase-change material switches" was invented by Jaroslaw Adamski (Steamwood, Ill.), Jeffrey A. Dykstra (Woodstock, Ill.) and Edward Nicholas Comfoltey (San Diego).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Circuits and methods that enable stacking of phase change material (PCM) switches and that accommodate variations in the resistance of the resistive heater(s) of such switches. Stacking is enabled by providing isolation switches for the resistive heater(s) in a PCM switch to reduce parasitic capacitance caused by the proximity of the resistive heater(s) to ...