ESD failure signature in capacitive RF MEMS switches

Nanoscale characterization of different stiction mechanisms in electrostatically driven MEMS devices based on adhesion and friction measurements

“…This includes capacitance and/or voltage measurements in MEMS capacitive switches [22,24,30] and current measurements in metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors [39,18,25,13,42]. Additionally, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) has recently been used to study the dielectric charging [17,44,47].…”

Physics of Charging in Dielectrics and Reliability of Capacitive RF-MEMS Switches

“…It is worth noticing that in the soft failure regime the high electric field induces dielectric charging, which can be monitored through the shift of the voltage that corresponds to the minimum of capacitance. The dependence of the shift was reported to vary in all cases as a logarithmic function of the number of positive TLP pulses (Ruan 2008). Moreover, the TLP stress was found to cause narrowing of both the pull-down and the pull-up windows (Tazzoli 2006 (Ruan 2008(Ruan , 2009b.…”

“…The shift of the bias for capacitance minimum is a quantity that accurately provides information on the dielectric charging and does not depend on the mechanical parameters o the metal bridge or cantilever. For this reason it has been widely used (Wibbeler 1998, Papaioannou 1996, Ruan 2008 to assess the charging due to cycling and ESD stress at room as well as at elevated temperatures. On the other hand the charge calculated through this method is obtained under low electric field conditions while the performance of a capacitive switch is determined by the shift of pull-down and pull-up voltages which are directly related to the device performance and occur under high electric fields.…”

Effect of Deposition Gas Ratio, RF Power, and Substrate Temperature on the Charging/Discharging Processes in PECVD Silicon Nitride Films for Electrostatic NEMS/MEMS Reliability Using Atomic Force Microscopy

“…For example, capacitance and/or voltage measurements in MEMS capacitive switches were reported in [9], [10], [25], and [26], while current measurements in MIM capacitors were introduced in [15], [16], [18], [21], [27], and [28]. The mentioned methods, although extremely useful, lead to results that depend strongly on the nature of the device under testing.…”