New family of anti-sulphur, high-reliability thin film chip resistors

TT Electronics offers its new APC Series resistors, a family of high-reliability surface mount resistors qualified for usage in environments exposed to sulphur-bearing gasses. Offering stability and tight tolerances, the resistors are optimised for high precision analogue circuits deployed in polluted environments where sulphur compounds in fumes could react with metals in standard component terminations. Validated to stringent anti-sulphur standards, the resistors are created to lessen failure in harsh automotive, industrial, and instrumentation applications including vehicle maintenance equipment, vehicle maintenance equipment, automotive battery management, roadside monitoring, portable test and measurement, industrial process control, and process monitoring in rubber, petrochemicals, wine, and waste.

Most anti-sulphur chip resistors are thick film with tolerance to 0.5% and TCR of 100ppm/C, but the APC family provides thin-film precision, enhanced on both counts by a factor of ten. With 19 combinations of size, sulphur protection grade, and power range, the series covers the widest array of resistance essentials for harsh applications and offers accuracy and reliability without relying on sealing, coating, or encapsulation strategies.

“APC’s anti-sulphur qualifications and low life drift add significant value in both performance and the overall system design process. By reducing field failure costs for designers, these high-reliability resistors free up error budgets and enable precision requirements to be relaxed elsewhere in the design,” said Barry Peters, VP Product Management and Engineering, TT Electronics.

APC series resistors are anti-sulphur tested and qualified to ASTM-B-905-95 and the newer EIA-977 standards, including tests of up to 1000 hours at 105C and up to 85% relative humidity.