Wideband DC-contact MEMS series switch

Author

Ghodsian, B. ; Bogdanoff, P. ; Hyman, D.

Author_Institution

XCOM Wireless Inc., Signal Hill, CA

Volume

3

Issue

3

fYear

2008

fDate

9/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

66

Lastpage

69

Abstract

The demonstration of a wideband DC-contact MEMS series switch on an alumina substrate is reported. The switch is based on a cantilever beam design. The tip of the cantilever beam was formed into a fork tip design, and its RF performance was measured and compared with a regular rectangular tip. This design reduced up-state capacitance from 10 to 3.8 fF. The beam with fork tip exhibited high isolation: -39, -32 and -17.3 dB at 5, 10 and 77 GHz, respectively. The measured insertion loss was -0.142, -0.172 and 0.36 dB at 5, 10 and 77 GHz, respectively. The switch had low actuation voltage (les39 V) and a relatively fast switching time of 45 mus. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a high-performance cantilever beam design DC-contact MEMS series switch at W-band frequencies.

Keywords

broadband antennas; cantilevers; microswitches; Al₂O₃; W-band frequencies; actuation voltage; alumina substrate; cantilever beam design; fork tip; fork tip design; frequency 10 GHz; frequency 5 GHz; frequency 75 GHz to 110 GHz; insertion loss; switching time; up-state capacitance; wideband DC-contact MEMS series switch;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Micro & Nano Letters, IET

Publisher

iet

ISSN

1750-0443

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/mnl:20080009

Filename

4634712