Silicon micromachined interconnects for on-wafer packaging of MEMS devices

A silicon micromachined on-wafer packaging scheme for RF MEMS switches is proposed that has excellent performance at K-band. The designed RF transition has an insertion loss of 0.1 dB and a return loss of 32 dB at 20 GHz along with a 55% bandwidth of operation. A novel fabrication technique previously presented is utilized for patterning the RF interconnects inside micromachined silicon cavities. The fabrication process is designed so as to be completely compatible with the MEMS switch process, hence allowing the parallel fabrication of all the components on one wafer. The on-wafer packages require no external wiring to achieve signal propagation and thus have potential for lower loss and better performance at higher frequencies.