Design and Fabrication of a Lateral Contact RF-MEMS Switch for MM-Wave Applications

Abstract:

Design, fabrication and test results of a lateral DC-contact RF-MEMS switch for mm-wave applications are presented. The switch is driven by a triple cascaded electrothermal buckle-beam actuator, which can generate large displacements and contact forces at lower temperatures than traditional electrothermal actuators. The size of the whole switch is only 1.2 mm × 1.4 mm in area. The measured transient times for switch-on and switch-off are 13.6 and 0.96 ms, respectively. Low insertion losses and high isolation of 0.17 dB and 26.7 dB, respectively, are obtained in the proposed switch at center frequency of 35GHz, the insertion losses less than 0.5dB and the isolation better than 22.5dB can be achieved in the proposed switch at 30~40GHz. The reasonable agreement between design and measurement is observed.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volumes 562-565)
• Pages: 645-651
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.562-565.645
• Online since: July 2013
• Authors: Yan Qing Zhu, Lei Han, Jie Ying Tang, Qin Gan Huang
• Keywords: Lateral Contact, mm-Wave, RF MEMS, Switch, Thermal Actuation

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