A single-crystal silicon DC-40 GHz RF MEMS switch

Author

Fruehling, Adam ; Pimpinella, Rick ; Nordin, Ron ; Peroulis, Dimitrios

Author_Institution

Birck Nanotechnol. Center, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

7-12 June 2009

Firstpage

1633

Lastpage

1636

Abstract

This paper presents a new DC-40 GHz RF MEMS switch whose moving part is made of single-crystal silicon (SCS). Unlike thin-film metals commonly employed in RF MEMS switches, SCS is essentially defect-free, has well known and repeatable material properties and is virtually stress free. This makes the switch design insensitive to process variations and amenable to high-yield manufacturing. Measured RF switches exhibit an on state insertion loss of less than 0.3 dB and an off state isolation of higher than 30 dB up to 40 GHz. Measured switching time is less than 4 us.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; microswitches; microwave switches; millimetre wave devices; silicon; RF MEMS switch; Si; frequency 0 GHz to 40 GHz; off-state isolation; on-state insertion loss; single-crystal silicon; switch design; Loss measurement; Manufacturing processes; Material properties; Process design; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Silicon; Stress; Switches; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 2009. MTT '09. IEEE MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Boston, MA

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2803-8

Electronic_ISBN

0149-645X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2009.5166026

Filename

5166026