Abstract
This paper presents a novel lateral series microwave switch fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate with a finite ground coplanar waveguide (FGCPW) configuration which is laterally actuated by the electrostatic force. The switch is built with a cantilever beam in the direction of the signal line and a fixed electrode is located opposite the cantilever beam. The mechanical structures are fabricated using SOI deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and shadow mask technology. The fabricated lateral RF MEMS switch has an isolation of 16 dB at 20 GHz. The insertion loss of the switch is 1 dB and return loss is 15 dB at 20 GHz. The threshold voltage is 19.2 V and switching time is 30 μs.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
E.R. Brown, “RF-MEMS switch for reconfigurable integrated circuits.” IEEE Trans.Microwave Theory and Tech.,vol. 46, no. 11, pp. 1868–1880, 1998.
J.K. Smith, F.W. Hopwood, and K.A. Leahy, “MEMswitch tech-nology in radar.” In Proc.IEEE Int.Conf.Radar, 2000, pp. 193–197.
Z.J. Yao, S. Chen, S. Eshelman, D. Denniston, and C. Goldsmith, “Micromachined low-Loss microwave switches.” IEEE J.Microelectromechanical Sys.,vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 129–134, 1999.
J.-M. Huang, A.Q. Liu, C. Lu, and J. Ahn, “Mechanical charac-terization of micromachined capacitive switches: Design consid-eration and experimental verification.” Sensors and Actuators A,vol. 108, nos. 1–3, pp. 36–48, 2003.
G.M. Rebeiz and J.B. Muldavin, “RF MEMS switches and switch circuits.” IEEE Microwave Magazine,vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 59–71, 2001.
C. Chang and P. Chang, “Innovative micromachined microwave switch with very low insertion loss.” Sensors and Actuators, vol 79, no. 6, pp. 212–214, 2002.
I. Schiele and B. Hillerich, “Comparison of lateral and vertical microswitches for application as microrelays.” J.Micromech.Microeng.,vol. 9, pp. 146–150, 1999.
Z.H. Li, D.C. Zhang, T. Li, W. Wang, and G.Y. Wu, “Bulk micro-machined relay with lateral contact.” J.Micromech.Microeng., vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 329–333, 2000.
Y. Wang, Z.H. Li, D.T. McCormick, and N.C. Tien, “Amicroma-chined RF microrelay with electrothermal actuation.” Sensors and Actuators A,vol. 103, pp. 231–236, 2003.
www.ansoft.com.
J.M. Gere and S.P. Timoshenko, Mechanics of Materials, 4th edition. PWS Publishing Company, Boston, 1997.
G.J. Burger, E.J.T. Smulders, J.W. Berenschot, T.S.J. Lammerink, J.H.J. Fluitman, and S. Imai, “High-resolution shadow-mask patterning in deep holes and its application to an electrical wafer feed-through.” Sensors and actuators A,vol. 54, pp. 669–673, 1996.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tang, M., Liu, A., Agarwal, A. et al. A New Approach of Lateral RF MEMS Switch. Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing 40, 165–173 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ALOG.0000032597.03215.65
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ALOG.0000032597.03215.65