Basic Techniques

Abstract

System design can utilize many components and use many techniques. The rapid advance of microelectronic technology has resulted in an abundance of low-cost, reliable circuitry. But the techniques in use in a switching system reflect the state of the art in componentry when the design was conceived, and the relatively long period necessary to bring a switching system into production means a design based on components that may have been surpassed in performance in the period that has elapsed since the design of the system was frozen (which brings to mind the saying “If it works it’s obsolete”). Still, all techniques used can be categorized into the application of the fundamental physical laws. The applications of the laws in telephone switching design relate largely to electromechanical techniques utilizing magnetics and to electronic techniques utilizing solid state physics and electro-optical techniques.