Multiactuation complementary metal-oxide semiconductor radio frequency MEMS switch

Chiung-I Lee; Chih-Hsiang Ko; Tsun-Che Huang; Feng-Chia Hsu

doi:10.1117/1.3478225

Abstract

A complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible, capacitive, shunt-type radio frequency MEMS switch design is demonstrated. The switch is actuated by an electrothermal actuator and an electrostatic actuator at the same time, and the switching status is latched by electrostatic force only. Since thermal actuators require a lower voltage than electrostatic actuators, and since an electrostatic force can maintain switching status with virtually no power, the benefits of the mechanism are a very low actuation voltage and low power consumption. The switch is fabricated by a standard 0.35-µm 2P4M CMOS process. The movable membrane can be released by either wet or dry postprocessing etching technologies. The design's CMOS-process compatibility is important because radio frequency (RF) characteristics are determined not just by the device itself. The design can minimize parasitic capacitance when a packaged RF switch and a packaged IC are wired together. The switch contains a set of coplanar waveguide transmission lines and a suspended membrane. The CPW lines and the membrane are contained in the metal layers of the CMOS process. The electrothermal actuators are contained in the polysilicon layer. Only standard CMOS process layers are needed for both the electrothermal and electrostatic actuations in the RF switch. The measurement results show that the electrothermal or electrostatic actuation requires less than 7 V.

Citation Download Citation

Chiung-I Lee, Chiung-I Lee, Chih-Hsiang Ko, Chih-Hsiang Ko, Tsun-Che Huang, Tsun-Che Huang, Feng-Chia Hsu, Feng-Chia Hsu, } "Multiactuation complementary metal-oxide semiconductor radio frequency MEMS switch," Journal of Micro/Nanolithography, MEMS, and MOEMS 9(3), 033008 (1 July 2010). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.3478225 . Submission:

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