• DocumentCode
    3158964
  • Title

    MEMS designed for tunable capacitors

  • Author

    Wu, H.D. ; Harsh, K.F. ; Irwin, R.S. ; Wenge Zhang ; Mickelson, A.R. ; Lee, Y.C. ; Dobsa, J.B.

  • Author_Institution
    Dept. of Mech. Eng., Colorado Univ., Boulder, CO, USA
  • Volume
    1
  • fYear
    1998
  • fDate
    7-12 June 1998
  • Firstpage
    127
  • Abstract
    A new tunable capacitor based on a standard microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology has been demonstrated. Its unique feature was the use of thermal actuators as indirect drives to change air gap from 2 to 0.2 /spl mu/m for high-Q MM-wave capacitors. Such a drive scheme achieved a sub-/spl mu/m controllability. The insertion loss of a polysilicon MEMS capacitor was measured to be -4dB at 40 GHz. Such a loss would have been better than -1 dB if the polysilicon were coated with metal.
  • Keywords
    Q-factor; capacitors; microactuators; millimetre wave devices; millimetre wave integrated circuits; tuning; -4 dB; 0.2 to 2 micron; 40 GHz; MEMS technology; Si; air gap; high-Q MM-wave capacitors; indirect drives; microelectromechanical systems; polysilicon MEMS capacitor; submicron controllability; thermal actuators; tunable capacitors; Actuators; Assembly; Capacitance measurement; Capacitors; Ceramics; Electrostatics; Micromechanical devices; Silicon; Thermal expansion; Voltage;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • Conference_Titel
    Microwave Symposium Digest, 1998 IEEE MTT-S International
  • Conference_Location
    Baltimore, MD, USA
  • ISSN
    0149-645X
  • Print_ISBN
    0-7803-4471-5
  • Type

    conf

  • DOI
    10.1109/MWSYM.1998.689339
  • Filename
    689339