Dielectric Charging of RF MEMS Capacitive Switches under Bipolar Control-Voltage Waveforms

Bipolar control-voltage waveforms have been proposed to mitigate dielectric charging in RF MEMS capacitive switches. In this work, for the first time, dielectric charging under bipolar waveforms is modeled and characterized quantitatively. In general, the experimental results agree with predictions based on the superposition of charging models that are extracted under either positive or negative voltage only. The present analysis indicates that, while bipolar waveforms can reduce charging, it is difficult to fine tune the waveforms to completely eliminate charging.