Metal micromechanical filter-power amplifier utilizing a displacement-amplifying resonant switch

Power gain up to 13.8 dB has been generated by a 23-MHz switched-mode power amplifier circuit employing an Al metal micromechanical slotted resonant switch (a.k.a., resoswitch). Here, slots in the resoswitch structure that amplify displacement along a chosen axis similar to that of [1] are key to preventing input axis impacts that plagued a previous such power amplifying resonant switch [2]. In addition, the use of a low temperature Al sur-face-micromachining process to fabricate the switch allows this PA to be integrated directly over advanced CMOS. This work demonstrates for the first time RF power gain via a metal micromechanical displacement-amplifying resonant switch, and in doing so inches this technology towards not only the possibility of near 100% efficient power gain when used in a Class-E configuration [3] in RF transmitters, but also realization of a channel-selecting filter-LNA function that could substantially lower receive path power consumption.