Design Manufacturing and Packaging of a 5-bit K-Band MEMS Phase Shifter

This work presents the design, manufacturing and packaging of a novel K-band 5-bit MEMS phase shifter for applications in Satellite COTM (Communication On The Move) Terminals. The first 4 bits are realized by using a switched line topology whereas the less significant bit consists of a loaded line section. The device has been manufactured in microstrip technology on high resistivity silicon substrate by using the 8-masks FBK MEMS process. Excellent performances were measured for the MEMS switches as well as the single bits constituting the phase shifter. The phase shifter full wave simulations show excellent performance in the frequency band of interest 20.2-21.2 GHz. Return loss and insertion loss better than 17 dB and 2 dB and phase error minor than 2 degrees are obtained for all the 2^⁵ phase shifter states. The design and manufacturing of the low cost packaging solution is also presented.