Title :
Experimental characterization of stiction due to charging in RF MEMS
Author :
Van Spengen, W. Merlijn ; Puers, Robert ; Mertens, Robert ; De Wolf, Ingrid
Author_Institution :
IMEC, Leuven, Belgium
Abstract :
We show that the commonly quoted number of cycles to failure is not a good figure of merit for the reliability of RF MEMS capacitive switches suffering from charging induced stiction failures. We use data from a new tool for low-frequency RF MEMS capacitance measurements and interferometric optical inspection. The total time the device is actuated before it fails is a much better measure.
Keywords :
automatic optical inspection; electrostatic actuators; microswitches; microwave switches; stiction; RF MEMS; capacitive switches; charging; figure of merit; interferometric optical inspection; low-frequency capacitance measurements; stiction; total actuation time; Bridge circuits; Capacitance measurement; Frequency measurement; Optical filters; Optical interferometry; Optical receivers; Optical switches; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Voltage;
Conference_Titel :
Electron Devices Meeting, 2002. IEDM '02. International
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7462-2
DOI :
10.1109/IEDM.2002.1175982
