NTC Thermistors Selection Guide

Advantages of Thermistor vs. All Other Temperature Sensors
Temperature sensors are widely used in many industry and consumer products. Among them, thermistors are the most commonly used type of sensor. It has the highest sensitivity, low noise, is simple to use and of low cost.   When interfacing with a same circuit, using different thermistors of the same valueit can result in different temperature readings.

Therefore, for high accuracy applications, thermistor temperature sensors are not interchangeable. RTDs, on the other hand, have a high interchangeability, linear characteristics, wide temperature range, but low sensitivity and higher cost. Temperature ICs have good linearity and sensitivity but limited temperature and also  a high cost. Thermal couple has the widest temperature, good linearity, but low sensitivity and requires a high cost temperature compensation circuit on connectors.

When using an NTC thermistor as the temperature sensor, it becomes the most important component for the temperature regulating system. To achieve high system performance, NTC thermistors should have low short term and long-term drifts in the R-T relationship, the resistance vs. the temperature, compact size, and reliability. Some low cost NTC thermistors are coated with epoxy materials and have large short- and long-term resistance drift, i.e., when sensing the same temperature, the resistance changes with time, causing the system to produce an inaccurate  temperature, thus, the target object temperature has drifted. Glass coated thermistors, on the other hand, have almost zero short- and long-term drift and all our NTC thermistors are of this type.

When choosing an NTC thermistor for a temperature control system, these are the main specifications to consider: operating temperature range, sensitivity, drift, size, and mounting approach.  Our thermistors and thermistor assemblies are mainly NTC thermistors, and can be used with our TEC controllers and TEC modules for building high stability low drift temperature control systems. These NTC thermistors and thermistor assemblies have high precision (+/-0.25°C@25°C), compact size (bare version down to 0.8mm diameter), and are coated with glass material on all the bare thermistors and the NTC thermistor of which the thermistor assemblies are made, resulting in both low  short and long term drift.

The NTC thermistors come in bare and lugged forms, the former is for point sensing to achieve high accuracy for specific points, such as laser diode die, etc.; the latter is for bulk temperature sensing, such as optical components, etc. If you have any questions about choosing and using an NTC thermistor or thermistor assemblies, let us know. We will do our best to help you.
Note: Free samples of thermistors can be given after application and its approval. Limit 3 per application.
Free sample application will need the follow information: contact name, company name, company website, company email, work phone number, and potential usage volume.

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