Binary-Coded 4.25-bit $W$-Band Monocrystalline–Silicon MEMS Multistage Dielectric-Block Phase Shifters

Somjit, Nutapong; Stemme, G.; Oberhammer, J.

doi:10.1109/tmtt.2009.2032350

Cited by 43 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The phase shift per loss is 71.05 and 98.38/ dB at 75 and 110 GHz, respectively, and the phase shift per length is 490 and 7168/cm at these frequencies. These results of the first prototypes show the best maximum loss per bit and return loss ever reported for the whole W-band (except for [61] which has better performance at its nominal frequency only, but performs worse for the rest of the W-band, and is fabricated on glass substrate), clearly proving the potential of this novel phase shifter concept [50,56].…”

Section: ) Rf Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…This section shows a novel multistage all-silicon microwave MEMS phase-shifter concept [55][56][57]. The concept is based on multiple-step deep-reactive-ion-etched monocrystallinesilicon dielectric blocks that are transfer bonded to an RF substrate containing a 3D micromachined coplanar-waveguide (CPW) transmission line, and features the following design elements for improved reliability over conventional MEMS phase shifters, i.e.…”

Section: A) Monocrystalline-silicon Dielectric-block Phase-shiftersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Sterner

Somjit

Shah

et al. 2011

Int. J. Microw. Wireless Technol.

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, antti ra ¤isa ¤nen 2 and joachim oberhammer 1 This paper presents an overview on novel microwave micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) device concepts developed in our research group during the last 5 years, which are specifically designed for addressing some fundamental problems for reliable device operation and robustness to process parameter variation. In contrast to conventional solutions, the presented device concepts are targeted at eliminating their respective failure modes rather than reducing or controlling them. Novel concepts of MEMS phase shifters, tunable microwave surfaces, reconfigurable leaky-wave antennas, multi-stable switches, and tunable capacitors are presented, featuring the following innovative design elements: dielectric-less actuators to overcome dielectric charging; reversing active/passive functions in MEMS switch actuators to improve recovery from contact stiction; symmetrical anti-parallel metallization for full stress-control and temperature compensation of composite dielectric/metal layers for free-standing structures; monocrystalline silicon as structural material for superior mechanical performance; and eliminating thin metallic bridges for high-power handling. This paper summarizes the design, fabrication, and measurement of devices featuring these concepts, enhanced by new characterization data, and discusses them in the context of the conventional MEMS device design.Keywords: RF MEMS, Reliability, MEMS design, Phase shifter, Tuneable capacitor, MEMS switch [12]. In general, RF MEMS devices are characterized by near-ideal signal handling performance in terms of insertion loss, isolation, linearity, large tuning range, and by keeping these performance parameters over a very large bandwidth [4,13]. I . I N T R O D U C T I O NMicrowave MEMS are RF MEMS devices that operate with signal frequencies above 30 GHz. With applications moving to higher frequencies, the performance advantages of MEMS devices over their competitors are getting larger. Also, at frequencies where the signal wavelengths are getting closer to the device dimensions, it is possible to miniaturize a complete RF system on a chip, and different ways of interaction between the microwave signals and the micromechanics lead to new possibilities of RF MEMS devices [47].Operational reliability, i.e. the ability of devices to work as specified over the whole lifetime, and robustness to process parameter variations, are key issues in RF MEMS design [14,48].Conventional RF MEMS designs are still characterized by some fundamental problems. Thin metallic bridges, for instance, found in many RF MEMS devices, such as switches and phase shifters, are susceptible to temperature-accelerated creep and fatigue, limiting the device life-time [14]. In contrast, monocrystalline silicon is a very robust MEMS structural material that is at the same time also suitable as RF dielectric material if high-resistivity silicon (HRS) is used [15,49].

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Section: ) Rf Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: A) Monocrystalline-silicon Dielectric-block Phase-shiftersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Sterner

Somjit

Shah

et al. 2011

Int. J. Microw. Wireless Technol.

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“…This type of artificial dielectrics have since then been used in antenna design (e.g., [2,7]), for test samples with a known permittivity [14], and in the design of W-band phase shifters [23]. We here use this technique in order to achieve tailor-made permittivities for the matching regions in the proposed lens antennas by etching periodic square holes of width h and period p in a silicon wafer according to Fig.…”

Section: Tailor-made Effective Permittivity Regions In a Silicon Wafermentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimization of Micromachined Millimeter-Wave Planar Silicon Lens Antennas With Concentric and Shifted Matching Regions

Frid¹,

Töpfer²,

Bhowmik³

et al. 2017

PIER C

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Abstract-This paper presents a study of planar silicon lens antennas with up to three steppedimpedance matching regions. The effective permittivity of the matching regions is tailor-made by etching periodic holes in the silicon substrate. The optimal thickness and permittivity of the matching regions were determined by numerical optimization to obtain the maximum wideband aperture efficiency and smallest side-lobes. We introduce a new geometry for the matching regions, referred to as shifted matching regions. The simulation results indicate that using three shifted matching regions results in twice as large aperture efficiency as compared to using three conventional concentric matching regions. By increasing the number of matching regions from one to three, the band-averaged gain is increased by 0.3 dB when using concentric matching regions, and by 3.7 dB when using shifted matching regions, which illustrates the advantage of the proposed shifted matching region design.

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“…Electrically-controlled phase shifters can replace mechanical scanning stages and thus dramatically increase both the measurement speed and system integration. Phase shifters using GaAs, MESFET, and p-i-n diode switches have high insertion loss, poor linearity performance, and large power consumption, in particular at sub-THz frequencies [2]. Ferrite based phase shifters perform well, but have large size and high cost.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phase shifters using liquid crystals [3] have too slow response time in seconds. Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) phase shifter can achieve low loss, high linearity, low power consumption and large bandwidth and have been shown to perform well up to 110 GHz frequency [2]. Micromachined waveguides have shown promising performance even up to 2.7 THz [4].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

500–600 GHz submillimeter-wave 3.3 bit RF MEMS phase shifter integrated in micromachined waveguide

Shah

Decrossas

Jung-Kubiak

et al. 2015

2015 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium

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Fig. 1. Submillimeter-wave MEMS phase shifter design using 9 E-plane stubs loading a micromachined rectangular waveguide reconfigured by using independently-operated MEMSreconfigurable surfaces. Abstract -This paper presents a 500-600 GHz submillimeterwave MEMS-reconfigurable phase shifter. It is the first ever RF MEMS component reported to be operating above 220 GHz. The phase shifter is based on a micromachined rectangular waveguide which is loaded by 9 E-plane stubs, which can be individually blocked by using MEMS-reconfigurable surfaces. The phase-shifter is composed of three metallized silicon chips which are assembled in H-plane cuts of the waveguide. The measurement results of the first prototypes of the MEMS reconfigurable phase shifter show a linear phase shift of 20° in 10 steps (3.3 bit) and have a return loss better than 15 dB from 500-600 GHz. The insertion loss is better than 3 dB up to 540 GHz, and better than 5 dB up to 600 GHz for all phase states, of which the major part is contributed by the assembly of the microchips between waveguide flanges which has a reproducibility error between 2 and 6 dB measured for reference chips.Index Terms -Micromachined waveguide, phase shifter, RF MEMS, rectangular waveguide, submillimeter-wave, terahertz.

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Binary-Coded 4.25-bit $W$-Band Monocrystalline–Silicon MEMS Multistage Dielectric-Block Phase Shifters

Cited by 43 publications

References 30 publications

Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Optimization of Micromachined Millimeter-Wave Planar Silicon Lens Antennas With Concentric and Shifted Matching Regions

500–600 GHz submillimeter-wave 3.3 bit RF MEMS phase shifter integrated in micromachined waveguide

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