EM design of broadband RF multiport toggle switches

Simon, Winfried; Schauwecker, B.; Lauer, Andreas K.; Wien, A.; Wolff, I.

doi:10.1002/mmce.20022

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Special switch designs for high-power handling have been proposed in recent years [12]- [16]. Active opening mechanisms [17], including a so-called toggle switch design which relies on a push-pull mechanism [18], are more suitable for high-power applications than those designs entirely relying on passive opening forces [19]. A special metal-contact design employing ball grid array dimples demonstrates RF power handling more than 1 W and achieves hot switching in excess of 100 million cycles [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Ruthenium-Based Multimetal-Contact RF MEMS Switch With a Corrugated Diaphragm

Miao

Oberhammer

2008

J. Microelectromech. Syst.

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This paper presents a ruthenium metal-contact RF microelectromechanical system switch based on a corrugated silicon oxide/silicon nitride diaphragm. The corrugations are designed to substantially reduce the influence of the fabricationinduced stress in the membrane, resulting in a highly insensitive design to process parameter variations. Furthermore, a novel multilayer metal-contact concept, comprising a 50-nm chromium/ 50-nm ruthenium/500-nm gold/50-nm ruthenium structure, is introduced to improve the contact reliability by having a hard-metal surface of ruthenium without substantial compromise in the contact and transmission-line resistances, which is shown by theoretical analysis of the contact physics and confirmed by measurement results. The contact resistance of the novel metallization stack is investigated for different contact pressures and is compared to pure-gold contacts. The contact reliability is investigated for different dc signal currents. At a measurement current of 1.6 mA, the Ru-Au-Ru contacts have an average lifetime of about 100 million cycles, whereas the Au-Au contacts reach 24 million cycles only. For larger signal currents, the metal contacts have proven to be more robust over the Au-Au contacts by a factor of ten. The measured pull-in voltage is reduced significantly from 61 V for flat diaphragm to 36 V for corrugated diaphragm with the introduction of corrugation. The measured RF isolation with a nominal contact separation of 5 µm is better than −30 dB up to 4 GHz and still −21 dB at 15 GHz, whereas the insertion loss of the fully packaged switch including its transmission line is about −0.7 dB up to 4 GHz and −2.8 dB at 15 GHz.[ 2007-0271]Index Terms-Contact metal, contact resistance, corrugated membrane, RF microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switch, wafer-level packaging.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Ruthenium-Based Multimetal-Contact RF MEMS Switch With a Corrugated Diaphragm

Miao

Oberhammer

2008

J. Microelectromech. Syst.

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“…The use of an arc‐suppression circuit was also reported to enable arcless operation of microrelays for high power applications 16. Actuation‐assisted release mechanisms 5, 17, 18 have also been actively studied to address stiction related failures in MEMS contact switches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐power MEMS switch enabled by carbon‐nanotube contact and shape‐memory‐alloy actuator

Dahmardeh

Ali

Saleh

et al. 2013

Physica Status Solidi (a)

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A forest of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is integrated as an electrical contact material with a high-power, normally-open switch based on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. A shape-memory-alloy (SMA) cantilever is thermally actuated to enable switching between the movable CNT forest and the copper electrode formed on the SMA. The out-of-plane SMA actuator provides high forces to enable distributed contacts with the CNT forest, achieving low contact resistances and high ON/OFF resistance ratios. The ON state of the switch shows contact resistances as low as 35 V with a dependence on the operating current. The device operation is performed with over 5-W input powers. Long-term operation with more than 1 Â 10 6 switching cycles is demonstrated. The results indicate that a combination of the CNT-based contact and the SMA actuator may be a promising path to realizing reliable MEMS contact switches for high-power applications.

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“…The switch membrane was composed of a 2 urn PECVD silicon oxide and suspended with a height of 2.5 fim above the substrate, being connected to the substrate on four anchors though a folded spring structure. DaimlerChrysler Research Center, Germany, developed a toggle switch as shown in Figure 9 which relies on a push-pull mechanism in 2002-2005 [26], [27], [28]. The…”

Section: Series Mems Switch Developedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, // = 1 for a flat diaphragm while n >\ for a corrugated diaphragm, which is determined by Equation 20. which is calculated by Equation (27). The geometric parameters of the flat diaphragm are the same as those listed in Table 5 .…”

Section: Actuation Of Stress-reduced Corrugated Diaphragmmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reliable and high speed RF MEMS switches with wafer-scale encapsulation

Ke¹

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The tremendously fast expansion of wireless and satellite communication systems in the information age is without parallel in history, leading to increase in the demand for miniaturized communication systems with smaller sizes, lighter weights, better functionalities and higher reliabilities. RF MEMS are widely recognized as enabling technologies for the miniaturization due to their promising characteristics of broadband operation, low power consumption and insertion loss, high isolation, and excellent signal linearity. In the past decade, RF MEMS switches are receiving much more attention for communication systems including tuneable matching networks, phase shifters, resonators, and reconfigurable filters. Nevertheless, challenges remain for the RF switches, restricting their applications in many systems. Reliability, packaging, switching speed, and power handling are among the common challenges shared by MEMS switches. This thesis presents a novel wafer-level encapsulated RF MEMS switch based on a multimetal contact containing ruthenium and a corrugated Si02/Si3N 4 diaphragm. A concept of stacked wafers is proposed to achieve near-hermetic and encapsulated switches, where wafers are processed separately and are subsequently bonded by wafer bonding. A novel multi-layer metal-contact concept, comprising a Cr/Ru/Au/Ru structure, is introduced to improve the contact reliability by having a hard-metal surface of ruthenium without substantial compromise in the contact resistances. The novel contact metallization scheme is proven to be an effective method to increase the contact durability. At a measurement xii

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EM design of broadband RF multiport toggle switches

Abstract: Radio frequency (RF) MEMS is an emerging sub-area of MEMS technology

Cited by 4 publications

References 5 publications

A Ruthenium-Based Multimetal-Contact RF MEMS Switch With a Corrugated Diaphragm

A Ruthenium-Based Multimetal-Contact RF MEMS Switch With a Corrugated Diaphragm

High‐power MEMS switch enabled by carbon‐nanotube contact and shape‐memory‐alloy actuator

Reliable and high speed RF MEMS switches with wafer-scale encapsulation

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