A fully packaged piezoelectric switch with lowvoltage actuation and electrostatic hold

This paper reports RF characterization of a fully packaged RF MEMS piezoelectric switch. The switch demonstrates better than 0.8 dB insertion loss at 2 GHz and 30 dB isolation up to 10 GHz. The presented device combines a piezoelectric actuation and a low electrostatic hold voltage to improve contact force. Actuation voltages of the switch are 5 V for both piezoelectric actuation and electrostatic hold. This actuation was sufficient to obtain contact resistance lower than 2 ohms. The switch is packaged by wafer-level packaging technology using gap control, AuSn eutectic bonding and post-process Thru-Silicon Vias.