Long-term RF Burn-in Effects on Dielectric Charging of MEMS Capacitive Switches

Author

Molinero, David ; Luo, Xiaohua ; Shen, Chih-Teng ; Palego, Cristiano ; Hwang, James C. M. ; Goldsmith, C.L.

Author_Institution

Lehigh Univ., Bethlehem, PA, USA

Volume

13

Issue

1

fYear

2013

fDate

Mar-13

Firstpage

310

Lastpage

315

Abstract

This paper experimentally quantified the long-term effects of RF burn-in, in terms of burn-in and recovery times, and found the effects to be semipermanent. Specifically, most of the benefit could be realized after approximately 20 min of RF burn-in, which would then last for several months. Additionally, since similar effects were observed on both real and faux switches, the effects appeared to be of electrical rather than mechanical nature. These encouraging results should facilitate the application of the switches in RF systems, where high RF power could be periodically applied to rejuvenate the switches.

Keywords

dielectric thin films; microswitches; microwave switches; MEMS capacitive switches; RF systems; dielectric charging; dielectric films; faux switches; high RF power; long-term RF burn-in effects; microwave devices; Conductors; Dielectrics; Electrodes; Radio frequency; Surface charging; Surface treatment; Transient analysis; Dielectric films; dielectric materials; microelectromechanical devices; microwave devices; switches;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Device and Materials Reliability, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1530-4388

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TDMR.2013.2246567

Filename

6461078