Have you ever wondered why video cassette recorders have ON and STANDBY modes but no ON/OFF power switch like a TV set? If you unplug your video cassette recorder from the wall socket while you're watching a standard TV broadcast channel, you'll find out why. Disconnecting power from the VCR, even when you're not using it, results in a dramatic loss in picture quality.

The reason for this is that the recorder has to remain powered up in order to maintain the vital link between your TV antenna or cable TV set-top box and the antenna input of your TV set. But maintaining this link consumes energy - an estimated 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year for a typical recorder. With an estimated 75 million in yearly sales of VCRs, that's a total annual energy consumption of 7.5 billion kilowatt-hours - equivalent to the output of a sizeable nuclear power station.

With the introduction of a unique new transistor, Philips Semiconductors, the largest European semiconductor manufacturer, gives VCR manufacturers the opportunity to save all this energy. The   BF1107 MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) conducts the TV antenna signal with no power applied, which makes it the ideal solution for routing this signal through a VCR. For recorders that use the BF1107, TV broadcast pictures will be just as good with the VCR turned off as they are with it turned on.

The BF1107 is not only a better solution, it's also a cheaper solution. VCR manufacturers have previously had to resort to complicated transistor circuits or special GaAs (Gallium Arsenide) transistors to route the TV antenna signal through a VCR - both solutions being considerably more expensive in terms of component and assembly costs. In contrast, the BF1107's ultra-small surface-mount package makes it extremely easy to mount onto printed circuit boards.

The BF1107 is yet another example of Philips Semiconductor's commitment to producing electronic devices that help to conserve valuable energy resources. Like the recently introduced GreenChip family of power supply controller ICs and the company's high efficiency switching transistors for fluorescent lighting applications, these innovative solutions make significant contributions to energy saving in consumer appliances.

An idea so simple it certainly should have been thought of earlier, but then isn't that what you have to say about all great ideas? The operation of a VCR's "RF IN" to "RF OUT" path, what I would label "E-to-E", has always been more complicated than it should have been; I will never understand why small coaxial relays weren't developed that would have been normally closed to the RF path when the machine was off. Instead, as Philips point out, the signal generally goes through the input tuner and is modulated back up to the Channel 2 or 3 to which it has been switched. {But who invented that system anyway? Wasn't it Philips with their first 'pull the tape round the drum' helical VCR?}Here, with the BF1107, the input signal can go directly to the output connector. For some of us who for years used cable services without the set-top box -- by using the VCR as a channel changer -- we would now have to modify our lazy ways and actually figure out again how to change the receiver's channel tuner; except, of course, cable has been booted out of my household in favor of the much more reliable and higher quality satellite signals.

This part is not completely without loss ("TV broadcast pictures will be just as good with the VCR turned off as they are with it turned on") exhibiting about 1.5 dB loss on the VHF channels. When switched off, to pass the VCR's output to the receiver, the isolation is about 33 dB on the VHF channels -- more than adequate.

A great "green" part, an increasingly European concern. It will sell in extremely large volumes and I would expect that we will see the part appearing in the RF input of mobile and portable phones, saving as it will the additional power in "receive" mode that present receive/transmit switches consume.