RF MEMS capacitive switches fabricated with HDICP CVD SiN/sub x/

Author

Chang, C.H. ; Qian, J.Y. ; Cetiner, B.A. ; Xu, Q. ; Bachman, M. ; Kim, H.K. ; Ra, Y. ; De Flaviis, F. ; Li, G.P.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., California Univ., Irvine, CA, USA

Volume

1

fYear

2002

fDate

2-7 June 2002

Firstpage

231

Abstract

The role of very low temperature (90-170/spl deg/C) high density inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition (HDICP CVD) process in RF MEMS switch fabrication is addressed. The results on SiN/sub x/ layers produced by both HDICP CVD and plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD) are compared in terms of surface roughness, breakdown voltage and RF MEMS switch performance. It is found that HDICP CVD can provide very thin (250 /spl Aring/) nitride layer having root mean square (rms) roughness value of 1.6 nm at very low temperature (90/spl deg/C). The breakdown strength is measured to be 9MV/cm A SiN/sub x/ layer with these characteristics improves the device reliability and dramatically increases its down position capacitance providing additional degree of freedom in RF MEMS switch design.

Keywords

microactuators; plasma CVD; semiconductor device breakdown; semiconductor device reliability; semiconductor switches; silicon compounds; surface topography; 250 angstrom; 90 to 170 degC; RF MEMS capacitive switches; SiN/sub x/; breakdown strength; breakdown voltage; device reliability; down position capacitance; high density inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition; surface roughness; Chemical vapor deposition; Fabrication; Plasma chemistry; Plasma density; Plasma temperature; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Rough surfaces; Silicon compounds; Surface roughness; Switches;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 2002 IEEE MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Seattle, WA, USA

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7239-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2002.1011600

Filename

1011600