A RF-MEMS based Monolithically Integrated Wide Range Tunable Low Pass Filter for RF Front End Applications

Abstract

Monolithically integrated, wide tuning range low pass filters have been demonstrated based on electrothermally driven MEMS switches. The integrated system is comprised of copper spiral inductors, polysilicon capacitors and electrothermal MEMS actuators on a single 4.3 x 2.4 mm2 chip; the design is optimized for the selection of three commonly used commercial cut-off frequencies: (f,) at 0.9GHz, 1.9GHz and 2.5GHz. The driving voltage is only 3.7V and out-of-band attenuation is -39dB at 3.5GHz, which is comparable to the state-of-art commercial ceramic filters. As such, this tunable filter and related fabrication technologies are applicable for various RF front end applications.

A comparative study between a micromechanical cantilever resonator and MEMS-based passives for band-pass filtering application

“…Since the late 1980s, major advances have been seen in wireless communication technologies. In the present wireless communication scenario, numerous standards such as CDMA and GSM exist which provide us voice, data and broadband communication [1]. In order to maintain the quality and reliability of these state of the art technologies, the specifications given to a communication circuit design engineer are getting more and more stringent.…”

Threshold Values Analysis of Substrate Parameters Based on MEMS Microstrip Filter

“…As an important component of microwave facilities, High frequency filter is applied in RF front-end to suppress clutters so as to improve frequency selectivity, which can help to improve performance of RF front-end, and then improve the performance of the whole system obviously [3]. Further more, by using MEMS technique, filters are feasible to be integrated with other functional blocks to fabricate single-chip Microsystems [4].…”