Lifetime effects of drive voltage for a commercially-available ohmic-contact RF MEMS switch

This work presents the first report on the influence of actuation voltage on high-voltage-switching lifetime with a population study of commercially-available ohmic contact RF MEMS switches manufactured by Omron. For switches actuated with a bias voltage of 15% less than Omron´s specified operating point a greater than 6× increase in lifetime is observed for 75% of devices. This is despite the fact that a 15% reduced voltage increases the bouncing behavior of the switch. Simulated results suggest that it is likely more important that the 15% reduced voltage decreases the impact velocity and force by 24% and 42% respectively. While the increase in switch lifetime is significant, it comes with a penalty of increased dispersion in the achieved contact resistance (1-3.1 Ω versus 1-2.5 Ω) and increased settling time (48 μs versus 13 μs).