Charging and discharging studies in microwave capacitive switches under high field pulse discharges

This paper investigates the impact of pulse induced charging on RF-MEMS capacitive switches. The main goal here is to better understand the charging and discharging process involved in high field discharges. This is a necessary study for the reason that the reliability of the structure is directly affected by the underlying charging/discharging processes. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) experiments were carried out using a transmission-line-pulsing technique and compared with a human-body-model testing method. The tests were done on a test-vehicle design of a W-band capacitive RF-MEMS switch. Base on capacitance vs. voltage measurements we highlight the importance of the dielectric material properties and its impact on the device immunity with respect to pulse induced failure mechanisms.