Oftentimes, we see an underlying trend throughout history where industrial technology trickles down from military to civilian use. Just to give you a few modern examples: the biplanes and triplanes of World War One became the first passenger planes of the 20s and 30s. The NAVSTAR military satellites that were launched into Cold War orbit to help guide ICBMs to their targets in the Soviet Union now can help you calculate how much longer you’ll be sitting in traffic on a Los Angeles freeway using GPS. And then of course there’s the Internet, which was invented initially back in the 1960s to allow the American government and military a means of post-apocalyptic communication that wouldn’t be destroyed by nuclear attack. And today what do we use the Net for? Well… uh, to look up the next pair of socks we’re going to buy?
Civilian technology has come a long way since the days of the Red Baron.
It’s pretty much the same trickle-down effect with the EMI shielding gasket. The EMI shielding gasket was originally widely used by the military to harden their electronics packages against enemy monitoring and jamming, and to prevent their own equipment from interfering with each other. Many of the military applications delved into the very-high (above 20 GHz) frequencies. In the meantime, “civilian” applications for these gaskets have been required to perform in the 1.5 – 2 GHz range. But with the rapidly developing complexity of high-frequency electronics for manufacturing, communications, and information systems, all that has changed quickly.
With the continuing refinement of our dual-elastomer Ultra-Vanshield EMI gaskets, with a thin outer conducive silver membrane that covers a pure, soft elastomer core, the multi-gigahertz revolution continues. Because of the stellar mechanical performance of this technology coupled with the high level of conductivity, these gaskets have unmatched shielding performance in these very high frequency applications. Expect nothing less from Vanguard. We wouldn’t be at the forefront of gasket technology if we weren’t investigating the new and evermore complex avenues for building tomorrow’s shielding gaskets.