Design and characterization of a MEMS capacitive switch for improved RF amplifier circuits

Author

Danson, John ; Plett, Calvin ; Tait, Niall

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron., Carleton Univ., Ottawa, Ont., Canada

fYear

2005

fDate

18-21 Sept. 2005

Firstpage

251

Lastpage

254

Abstract

A design procedure for a MEMS capacitive switch with a focus on the circuit designer´s requirements is presented. A MEMS switch is designed, fabricated and characterized with physical and RF measurements for inclusion in simulations. Using the MEMS switch models, a dual-band LNA operating at 2.4 GHz and 5.2 GHz, and a tunable power amplifier at 5.2 GHz are designed in 0.18 μm CMOS. MEMS switches allow the LNA to operate with 11 dB of isolation between the two bands and result in up to 37% PAE improvement in the PA at low input powers.

Keywords

CMOS analogue integrated circuits; UHF amplifiers; UHF integrated circuits; low noise amplifiers; microswitches; microwave integrated circuits; microwave power amplifiers; network topology; 0.18 micron; 2.4 GHz; 5.2 GHz; MEMS capacitive switch; MEMS switch models; RF amplifier circuits; dual-band LNA; tunable power amplifier; Circuit simulation; Dual band; Micromechanical devices; Microswitches; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Semiconductor device modeling; Switches; Switching circuits; Tunable circuits and devices;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, 2005. Proceedings of the IEEE 2005

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9023-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CICC.2005.1568654

Filename

1568654