A temperature insensitive DC-contact RF-MEMS switch

This article details an investigation on the temperature variation of cantilever-structured RF-MEMS switches. Temperature-induced out-of-plane deformation of the cantilever was observed in the measurement of cryogenic switches in this research. Three-dimensional multi-physics finite element analysis was performed to explain the deformation. Experimental results are also shown to verify the simulation results. A stress-relaxation geometry is proposed and fabricated for a temperature insensitive switch design. The measured temperature insensitive switch demonstrates an actuation voltage response to temperature of 11 mV/K over 220 K temperature range (300 to 77 K) and outstanding broadband RF performance with an insertion-loss less than 0.8 dB and isolation better than 24 dB up to 50 GHz.