An overview of semiconductor bridge, SCB, applications at Sandia National Laboratories

The semiconductor bridge, SCB, developed by Sandia National Laboratories is a maturing technology now being used in several applications by Sandia customers. Most applications arose because of a need at the system level to provide explosive assemblies that were light weight, small volume, low cost and required small quantities of electrical energy to function -- for the purposes of this paper we define an explosive assembly to mean the combination of the firing set and an explosive component. As a result, and because conventional firing systems could not meet the stringent size, weight and energy requirements of our customers, we designed and are investigating SCB applications that range from devices for Sandia applications to igniters for fireworks. We present in this paper an overview of SCB technology with specific examples of the system designed for our customers to meet modern requirements that sophisticated explosive systems must satisfy in today`s market environments