Very wide tuning range micro-electromechanical capacitors in the MUMPs process for RF applications

Author

Tsang, T.K.K. ; El-Gamal, M.N.

Author_Institution

Microelectron. & Comput. Syst. Lab., McGill Univ., Montreal, Que., Canada

fYear

2003

fDate

12-14 June 2003

Firstpage

33

Lastpage

36

Abstract

A structure that extends the tuning range of MEMS capacitors by at least a factor of eight, compared to recently reported devices fabricated in the same polysilicon surface micromachining MUMPs process, is proposed. A 0.2 pF capacitor has a 325% tuning range, and a Q-factor of 90 at 2.4 GHz. A variation of the same structure has a 0.6 pF capacitance and a 433% tuning range, compared to 238% and 253% for state-of-the-art MEMS and CMOS devices, respectively. The self-resonance frequencies of both devices are beyond 4 GHz.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; Q-factor; UHF devices; capacitors; elemental semiconductors; micromachining; micromechanical devices; semiconductor devices; semiconductor technology; silicon; 0.2 pF; 0.6 pF; 2.4 GHz; CMOS devices; MEMS capacitors; MUMPs process; Q-factor; Si; microelectromechanical capacitors; polysilicon surface micromachining; Application software; Capacitors; Circuit optimization; Costs; Isolation technology; Micromachining; Micromechanical devices; Q factor; Radio frequency; Tuning;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI Circuits, 2003. Digest of Technical Papers. 2003 Symposium on

Conference_Location

Kyoto, Japan

Print_ISBN

4-89114-034-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VLSIC.2003.1221154

Filename

1221154