A novel electrothermally actuated RF MEMS switch for wireless applications

This paper presents a new type of thermally actuated switch for wireless communication system operated at low gigahertz frequencies. The switch is driven by a metal electrothermal actuator, which can generate large displacement and high contact force at lower temperatures. The MEMS switch utilizing the parallel four-beam actuator requires driving voltage of 0.07 V for an 8 μm displacement. RF performances are improved by suspending the structure 25 μm from the substrate using MetalMumps process. An ON state insertion loss of -0.27 dB at 10 GHz and an OFF state isolation of -40 dB at 10 GHz are achieved on low resistivity ...
View more >This paper presents a new type of thermally actuated switch for wireless communication system operated at low gigahertz frequencies. The switch is driven by a metal electrothermal actuator, which can generate large displacement and high contact force at lower temperatures. The MEMS switch utilizing the parallel four-beam actuator requires driving voltage of 0.07 V for an 8 μm displacement. RF performances are improved by suspending the structure 25 μm from the substrate using MetalMumps process. An ON state insertion loss of -0.27 dB at 10 GHz and an OFF state isolation of -40 dB at 10 GHz are achieved on low resistivity silicon substrate.
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Conference Title

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2013 IEEE 8TH CONFERENCE ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS AND APPLICATIONS (ICIEA)

Publisher URI

http://www.ieeeiciea.org/2013/

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1109/ICIEA.2013.6566623

Copyright Statement

© 2013 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Subject

Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)

Power and Energy Systems Engineering (excl. Renewable Power)

Publication URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10072/56639

Collection

Conference outputs