A zipper-action differential micro-mechanical tunable capacitor

Author

Ionis, Gregory V. ; Dec, Aleksander ; Suyama, Ken

Author_Institution

Integrated Syst. Lab., Columbia Univ., New York, NY, USA

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

29

Lastpage

32

Abstract

We present a differential multi-fingered micro-electro-mechanical tunable capacitor. This device is intended to be used in RF IC applications such as filters and VCOs. The device is based on the zipper actuation principle, which allows for potentially wide tuning range. Differential structure is used to improve the quality factor. This capacitor was fabricated in MUMPs polysilicon surface micromachining process and achieves 46% tuning range with tuning voltage of 35 V. A CMOS VCO with this capacitor exhibited tuning range of 4.8% with the center frequency of 1.5 GHz. The phase noise was -131 dBc/Hz at 600 kHz offset from carrier with the output power of 1.6 dBm

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; Q-factor; UHF devices; capacitors; microactuators; micromachining; phase noise; tuning; voltage-controlled oscillators; 1.5 GHz; 35 V; CMOS VCO; MUMPs polysilicon surface micromiachining process; RF IC applications; RF VCOs; RF filters; Si; differential multi-fingered micro-electro-mechanical tunable capacitor; differential structure; output power; phase noise; quality factor; tuning range; tuning voltage; zipper actuation principle; zipper-action differential micro-mechanical tunable capacitor; Application specific integrated circuits; CMOS process; Capacitors; Filters; Micromachining; Q factor; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency integrated circuits; Tuning; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microelectromechanical Systems Conference, 2001

Conference_Location

Berkeley, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7224-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSC.2001.992735

Filename

992735