Research and Development has always occupied a special position at Isabellenhütte. True to the motto of "Acting instead of reacting" we continually present innovative products and as a result remain world leader in our market segments.

Tracking customer enquiries and identifying individual requirements often forms the basis of a new development. Our criterion continues to be to develop qualitative high-class products with extraordinary performance features.

The manufacture of precision resistors in electrical engineering requires particular care and a suitable resistance material. Over 130 years ago, one searched for alloys with high specific resistance, a low dependency of the resistance on the temperature, low thermoelectric voltage against copper and high temporal stability. Pure metals are unsuitable for precision resistors due to their low specific resistance and a strong temperature dependency. Since 1881 Isabellenhütte has manufactured copper-manganese alloys with Ni-addition. In 1889, together with the PTR (physikalisch technische Reichsanstalt) the alloy Manganin® was developed as special copper-manganese-nickel alloy, which perfectly fulfills this requirement. Since then, Manganin® has been used successfully in all high precision measurement resistors and standards and marketed as wire, band and foil.

Isabellenhütte has more than eight decades of experience with Manganin® and has researched equally as long in the field of metal alloys. Equipped with this knowledge, from the reliable copper-manganese alloys we developed an alloy with a better TC and the same specific resistance, which later became a low-resistance alternative to Manganin®. This composition - first with germanium (Zeranin® 43), today with tin (Zeranin® 30) - has even better physical properties for the production of low ohm precision resistors. The alloy today consists of copper, manganese and tin (CuMn7Sn).
Compared with other alloys, Zeranin® provides a significantly better temperature coefficient in the temperature range between -40 and +120 °C. With that, it is excellently suitable for the production of very low-resistance and extremely precise resistors.

Systematic development and setup of the production of high precision and power resistors under the leadership of Dr. Ullrich Hetzler. First 4-wire resistor on foil basis.

Flexible heaters have been and are used to an increasing extent there where it matters, to transmit heat specifically to certain areas. Possible reasons are confined spaces, the desire for particular heating capacity distributions or the demand for short response times (low thermal mass). Since 1979 we have produced heaters in foil technology for customer-specific applications, which adapt to the variety of shapes due to their flexibility. For small areas to be heated (A< 1dm²) the flexible heater foils are superior to resistance-wire heaters for reasons of cost and quality. The applications: Tempering of highly sensitive electronics/mechanisms (field operation), avoidance of condensation water in optical systems, defrosting of frozen liquids (medicine, biology).

Development of the first low ohm SMD resistor in the world in 10 mOhm.

Presentation of the first resistor (type Q; 0.4 mOhm) for the overall current measurement of the earthing wire of a vehicle at the Hannover Trade Fair.

The patent for resistors made from composite materials was granted (ISA-WELD® -Technology). The first "BVM" resistor was the starting point for several product families for the high-current measurement.

First 1-mOhm SMD shunt (10 years before our competitors). First 100-μOhm resistor for high-current measurements in cables or conductor rails. Detection sensitivity 1 mA with integrated amplifier.

- First use of an ISA-WELD® shunt (power meter shunt) in ampere-hour- and kWh-meters

- Development of the first 20-Watt SMD resistor for power hybrids

- Development of the first precision power resistor with 500 W

- Development of the product series SMx

Manufacture of the first electrical kWh-meter module with integrated low ohmic shunt.

Development of the battery current sensor, consisting of an 100-μOhm shunt with integrated electronics. Presentation of a shunt with integrated measuring electronics at the international trade fair Electronica in Munich.

Development of the first complete measured value acquisition system for electronic battery management systems in motor cars and trucks (www.isa-asic.de). The market introduction took place three years later, in 2002. As a universal measuring system the ISA-ASIC is also used in many applications outside the automotive market.

Development of various customer-specific resistors (50 - 100 μOhm) for the battery management.

Development of a 2-μΩ-coaxial resistance for measuring extremely high currents.

Development of USB precision measuring devices for temperature (ITS-RTD, ITS-TC) and resistance (μOhm-Meter) based on ISA-ASIC.

Introduction of the VMx-family

Introduction of the high-current calibration current source (ICS) and the high-current measuring module (IHC) (Precision  Measurement)