Active recovering mechanism for high performance RF MEMS redundancy switches

This paper reports on the design, manufacturing and characterization of an active push/pull toggle RF MEMS switch for satellite redundancy networks. The actively controlled pull-up mechanism allows for extended restoring capabilities of the switch in case of down-state stiction due to long time continuous bias voltage. As a proof of concept an active push/pull MEMS capacitive switch was modeled, designed and manufactured in shunt configuration on a 50 Ω coplanar transmission line. RF measurement results show a return loss better than 20 dB in the 0.1 - 40 GHz range and an insertion loss better than 0.2 dB up to 20 GHz. Long term stress characterization is performed, proving the lifetime of the proposed device for over 50 million cycles. Finally the capability of restoring the membrane OFF state position after down-state stiction has been demonstrated.