INTRODUCTION
bigger gap that reduces the coupling between signal and ground yet also
requires higher voltage to actuate the switch. To achieve a reasonable
actuation voltage, a 4-∝m-thick copper is used as the transmission line.
The glass wafer is chosen for the RF switch over a semi-conductive
silicon substrate since typical silicon wafer is too lossy for RF signal.
When the membrane is in the down position, the electrical isolation of the
switch mainly depends on the capacitive coupling between the signal line
and ground lines. The dielectric layer plays a key role for the electrical
isolation. The smaller the thickness and the smoother the surface of the
dielectric layer, the better isolation of the switch is. But there is another
trade-off here. When the membrane is pulled down, the biased voltage is
directly applied across the dielectric layer. Since this layer is very thin,
the electric field within the dielectric layer is very high. The thickness of
the dielectric layer should be chosen such that the electric field will never
exceed the breakdown electric field of the dielectric material. The silicon
nitride film has breakdown electric field as high as several mega-volts per
centimeter and can be utilized as dc block dielectric layer. In this project,
the thickness of the silicon nitride layer is chosen as 0.2 ∝m to
accomplish the dc block and RF coupling purpose.
The probe station and network analyzer (HP 8510C) were used to
characterize the capacitive MEMS switch. Fig. 3 shows the micrograph
of a switch under test. When the switch is unactuated and the membrane
is on the up position, the switch is called in off-state. When the switch is
actuated and the membrane is pulled down, the switch is called in on-
state. The major characteristics of the switch are the insertion loss when
the signals pass through and the isolation when signals are rejected. In the
off-state the RF signal passes underneath the membrane without much
loss. In the on-state, between the central signal line and coplanar wave-
guide grounds exists a low impedance path through the bended
membrane. The switch will reflect the RF signal.
The isolation and return loss of the switch in the on-state is shown
in Fig. 5. Due to the geometry of the capacitive switch, the signal cannot
be coupled to ground perfectly at the low frequency. As the frequency
becomes high, the coupling between the signal line and ground lines
makes the isolation of the switch approximately 15 dB at 20 GHz, which
is sufficient for switching RF signals.
RF MEMS TECHNOLOGY
Drive capacitor
Unbiased - OFF
Spring
RF line RF line
Biased - ON
Contact Anchor
shunt
line (see Figure9). When the beam is in the up position, the capacitance
of the line-dielectric-air-beam configuration is on the order of ~50 fF,
which translates to a high impedance path to ground through the beam
[IC=1/(ω C)]. However, when a dc voltage is applied between the
transmission line and the electrode, the induced electrostatic force pulls
the beam down to be coplanar with the dielectric pad, lowering the
capacitance to pF levels, reducing the impedance of the path through the
beam for high frequency (RF) signal and shorting the RF to ground .
Therefore, opposite to the operation of the series contact switch, the beam
in the up position corresponds to a low-loss RF path to the output load,
while the beam in the down position results in RF shunted to ground and
no RF signal at the output load (see Figure9). While the shunt
configuration allows hot-switching and gives better linearity, lower
insertion loss than the MEMS series contact switch, the frequency
dependence of the capacitive reactance restricts high quality performance
to high RF signal frequencies (5-100 GHz) , whereas the contact switch
can be used from dc levels.
PACKAGING
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For low - medium power operation (<100 mW) the primary design
failures are based in materials choice and placement, increased resistance
at the metal contact in series switches and dielectric charging in shunt
switches.
Series contact switches tend to fail in the open circuit state with
wear. Even though the bridge is collapsing and making contact with the
transmission line, the conductivity of the contact metallization area
decreases until unacceptable levels of power loss are achieved. These
out-of-spec increases in resistivity of the metal contact layer over cycling
time may be attributed to frictional wear, pitting, hardening, non-
conductive skin formation, and/or contamination of the metal.
Decreasing the contact force during actuation can reduce pitting and
hardening. But tailoring the design to minimize the effect involves
There are some areas of RF MEMS reliability research that have not
been investigated in detail and are in need of immediate attention. For
example, RF MEMS series contact switches were thought to be immune
to radiation effects until JPL’s total dose gamma irradiation experiments
on the RSC MEMS contact switch showed design-dependent charge
separation effects in the pull-down electrode dielectric material, which
noticeably decreased the actuation voltage of the device. This
immediately begs the question of how radiation effects will accelerate the
dielectric material failure mechanisms of capacitive switches, which have
known dielectric failure mechanisms, or other series switches that utilize
dielectric material in their electrode structures. These and other issues,
such as reconfiguration (does a switch recover from long-duration
continuous actuation?) and long lifetime ruggedness must be investigated
in detail to ensure robust and reliable design of RF MEMS devices.
PACKAGING
OPERATIONAL
Power Handling
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Renjith P.
CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
RF MEMS TECHNOLOGY
SWITCHES
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES