Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:07:05.588Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

RF-MEMS switches with AlN dielectric and their applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2011

Montserrat Fernández-Bolaños Badía ,
Pierre Nicole  and
Adrian Mihai Ionescu
Montserrat Fernández-Bolaños Badía*
Affiliation:
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Nanolab, Switzerland. Phone: +41 21 693 3973.
Pierre Nicole
Affiliation:
THALES Airborne Systems, Elancourt, France.
Adrian Mihai Ionescu
Affiliation:
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Nanolab, Switzerland. Phone: +41 21 693 3973.
*
Corresponding author: M. Fernández-Bolaños Badía Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper reports on the potential of RF-MEMS technology based on aluminum nitride capacitive dielectric and nickel-suspended membranes to provide RF circuit functions in reconfigurable front-end radios. The RF performance of capacitive switches, distributed MEMS transmission lines (DMTLs) phase shifters for beam steering and tunable filters, including center frequency and bandwidth tuning of bandpass and band-stop filters are presented. Detailed characterization based on S-parameter data demonstrates very promising figures of merit of all fabricated demonstrators from 5 to 40 GHz.

Keywords

RF MEMS switchphase shiftertunable filtermodellingsimulation and characterization of devices and systems
Type
Research Papers
Information
International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies , Volume 3 , Special Issue 5: RF MEMS , October 2011 , pp. 509 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1]Rebeiz, G.M.: RF MEMS: Theory, Design and Technology. Wiley-Interscience, New York, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2]Goldsmith, C.L.; Zhimin, Y.; Eshelman, S.; Denniston, D.: Performance of low-loss RF MEMS capacitive switches. IEEE Microw. Guided Wave Lett., 8 (8) (1998), 269–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3]Peroulis, D.; Pacheco, S.P.; Sarabandi, K.; Katehi, L.P.B.: Electromechanical considerations in developing low-voltage RF MEMS switches. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 51 (1) (2003), 259–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4]Park, J.Y.; Kim, G.H.; Chung, K.W.; Bu, J.U.: Fully integrated micromachined capacitive switches for RF applications, in Proc. IEEE MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp. Dig., vol. 1, June 2000, 283–286.Google Scholar
[5]Blondy, P. et al. : Dielectric less capacitive MEMS switches, in Proc. IEEE MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp. Dig., vol. 2, June 2004, 573–576.Google Scholar
[6]Ziaei, A.; Dean, T.; Mancuso, Y.: Lifetime characterization of capacitive power RF MEMS switches, in Proc. 35th Eur. Microw. Conf., vol. 3, October 2005, 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7]Fernández-Bolaños, M.; Tsamados, D.; Dainesi, P.; Ionescu, A.M.: Reliability of RF MEMS capacitive switches and distributed MEMS phase shifters using AlN dielectric, in Proc. IEEE 22nd Int. Conf. Micro Electro Mech. Syst., January 2009, 638–641.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8]Muldavin, J.B.; Rebeiz, G.M.: High-isolation inductively-tuned X-band MEMS shunt switches, in Proc. IEEE MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp. Dig., vol. 1, June 2000, 169–172.Google Scholar
[9]Hayden, J.S.; Rebeiz, G.M.: Low-loss cascadable MEMS distributed X-band phase shifters. IEEE Microw. Guided Wave Lett., 10 (4) (2000), 142–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[10]Fernández-Bolaños, M.; Lisec, T.; Dainesi, P.; Ionescu, A.M.: Thermally stable distributed MEMS phase shifter for airborne and space applications, in Proc. 38th Eur. Microw. Conf., October 2008, 100–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[11]Perruisseau-Carrier, J.; Fritschi, R.; Crespo-Valero, P.; Skrivervik, A.K.: Modeling of periodic distributed MEMS-application to the design of variable true time delay lines. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 54 (1) (2006), 383–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[12]Goldsmith, C.; Maciel, J.; McKillop, J.: Demonstrating reliability. IEEE Microw. Mag., 8 (2007), 56–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[13]Lakshminarayanan, B.; Mercier, D.; Rebeiz, G.M.: High-reliability miniature RF-MEMS switched capacitors. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 56 (4) (2008), 971–981.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[14]Fernández-Bolaños, M.; Lisec, T.; Dehollain, C.; Tsamados, D.; Nicole, P.; Ionescu, A.M.: Highly tunable band-stop filters based on AlN RF MEMS capacitive switches with inductive arms and zipping capacitive coupling, in Int. Electron Device Meeting, IEDM 2009, December 2009, 805–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[15]Fernández-Bolaños, M.; Tsamados, D.; Ionescu, A.M.: RF performance and lifetime study of MEMS capacitive switches using AlN as dielectric compared to Si3N4. J. Microelectromech. Syst, (2010).Google Scholar
[16]Simons, R.: Coplanar Waveguide Circuits, Components and Systems. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[17]Vinoy, K.J.; Varadan, V.K.: Design of reconfigurable fractal antennas and RF-MEMS for space-based systems. Smart Mater. Struct., 10 (2001), 1211–1223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[18]Barker, S.; Rebeiz, G.M.: Distributed MEMS true-time delay phase shifter and wide-band switches. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 46 (11) (1998), 1881–1890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[19]Hung, J.-J.; Dussopt, L.; Rebeiz, G.M.: Distributed 2- and 3-bit W-band MEMS phase shifters on glass substrates. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 52 (2) (2004), 600–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[20]Perruisseau-Carrier, J.; Fritschi, R.; Skrivervik, A.K.: Design of enhanced multi-bit distributed MEMS variable true-time delay lines, in Research in Microelectron. Electron., PhD, vol. 1, July 2005, 189–192.Google Scholar
[21]Fernández-Bolaños, M.; Perruisseau-Carrier, J.; Dainesi, P.; Ionescu, A.M.: RF MEMS capacitive switch on semi-suspended CPW using low-loss high-resistivity silicon substrate. J. Microelectron. Eng., 85 (5–6) (2008), 1039–1042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[22]Fernández-Bolaños, M. et al. : Dipole antenna and distributed MEMS phase shifter fully integrated in a single wafer process for beam steering applications. J. Microelectron. Eng., 87 (2010), 1290–1293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[23]Vasylchenko, A.; Fernández-Bolaños, M.; Brebels, S.; De Raedt, W.; Vandenbosch, G.A.E.: Conformal phased array for a miniature wireless sensor node, in IEEE 20th Int. Conf. on Applied Electromagnetics and Comm., September 2010 (invited).Google Scholar
[24]Fernánez-Bolaños, M.; Dehollain, C.; Ayoz, S.; Nicole, P.; Ionescu, A.M.: Center frequency and bandwidth tunable bandpass filter based on RF MEMS (10 GHz- 14 GHz), in Proc. 39th Eur. Microw. Conf., September 2009, 1708–1711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[25]Carey-Smith, B.E.; Warr, P.A.; Beach, M.A.; Nesimoglu, T.: Wide tuning-range planar filters using lumped-distributed coupled resonators. IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., 53 (2) (2005), 777–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[26]Fernández-Bolaños, M.; Dehollain, C.; Nicole, P.; Ionescu, A.M.: Tunable band-stop filter based on single RF MEMS capacitive shunt switch with meander arm inductance. J. Solid-State Electronic, 54 (9) (2010), 1033–1040.CrossRefGoogle Scholar