Electro-thermally actuated RF MEMS switch for wireless communication

This paper presents a lateral resistive-contact electrothermally actuated MEMS switch for wireless communication applications. It is manufactured on a standard low-resistivity substrate, and its RF performance was improved by suspending the structures 25μm from the substrate, which is good for future integration with active devices in the system-on-chip concept. The switch is driven by a metal electrothermal actuator, which can generate large displacements and contact forces at lower temperatures than polysilicon electrothermal actuators. Measurement results show that the RF MEMS switch have good performance under DC of 0.9 to 1.1A from 0-20GHz.