A Design of Thermo-Electrostatic Actuated Microelectromechanical Switch with Low Voltage and Fabrication Efforts

Abstract:

Requirement of voltage up-converters due to high pull-in voltage is one of the main problems by merely electrostatic actuated Microelectromechanical system-based switches. Thermally actuated switches are another alternatives but with very high power dissipation. In this paper a low voltage switch is demonstrated, which uses a combined thermo-electrostatic actuator. The switch can be integrated with standard CMOS circuits without any up-converters. Thermally power dissipation for the switch is lower than just thermal actuators. The switching time is about 70µs and the maximal temperature of thermal actuator is lower than 150oC which cannot cause any longtime damage. Isolation and Insertion Loss quantities have been calculated to -25dB and -0.65dB at 20GHz from HFSS results respectively.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 403-408)
• Pages: 3791-3796
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.403-408.3791
• Online since: November 2011
• Authors: Parisa Mahmoudi, Ashkan Mahmoudi, Esmaeil Najafiaghdam
• Keywords: CMOS up Converter, Pull-In Voltage, Rf MEMS Switch, Thermo-Electrostatic Actuation

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