Study on the Reliability of Capacitive Shunt RF MEMS Switch

Author

Hou, Zhihao ; Liu, Zewen ; Hu, Guangwei ; Liu, Litian ; Li, Zhijian

Author_Institution

Dept. of Microelectron. & Nanoelectronics, Tsinghua Univ., Beijing

fYear

2006

fDate

26-29 Aug. 2006

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

Study on the reliability of capacitive shunt RF MEMS switch is present. The electrical failure and mechanical failure mechanism is analyzed separately. In the electrical failure analysis, the breakdown of dielectric between up- and down-electrode is measured and analyzed. In the measurement, a ramping DC voltage of 5Vs^-1 is applied and different breakdown voltages are obtained. For the switches with electrode roughness of 27.4nm, 16.0nm and 5.4nm, the breakdown event maximum is in the voltage ranges of 20~40V, 30~60V and 80~110V respectively. In the mechanical failure analysed, the failure induced by stress is analysis. The failure samples of Al membrane broken and buckling are present. The best stress in Al membrane is at the range of 10~20MPa

Keywords

aluminium; electric breakdown; failure analysis; microelectrodes; microswitches; reliability; 16.0 nm; 27.4 nm; 5.4 nm; Al; Al membrane; capacitive shunt RF MEMS switch; dielectric breakdown; electrical failure mechanism; electrode roughness; mechanical failure mechanism; Biomembranes; Breakdown voltage; Dielectric breakdown; Dielectric measurements; Electric variables measurement; Electrodes; Failure analysis; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Stress; Switches;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronic Packaging Technology, 2006. ICEPT '06. 7th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Shanghai

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0619-6

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0620-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICEPT.2006.359877

Filename

4198998