Fully Integrated Piezoelectric RF MEMS Switched with Ultra Low Voltage operation
In this paper, ultra-low voltage operated piezoelectric RF MEMS in-line dc contact switches with serial and shunt configurations have been realized by using silicon bulk micromachining technologies for advanced mobile handset applications. The developed RF MEMS in-line dc contact switches are comprised of four piezoelectric cantilever actuators with an Au contact metal electrode and a suspended Au signal transmission line above the silicon substrate. These dc contact switches perform a ‘make and break’ operation in an electrical path with metal-metal contacts and hence show good insertion loss and exhibit excellent linearity. The measured operation dc bias voltages are ranged from 2.5 to 4 volts by varying the thickness and the length of the piezoelectric cantilever actuators, which are well agreed with the simulated results. The measured isolation and insertion losses of the switch with serial configuration are −43 dB and −0.21 dB (including parasitic effects of the silicon substrate) at a frequency of 2 GHz and an actuation voltage of 3 volts, while the switch with shunt configuration has −18 dB and −0.8 dB at the same frequency range. However, the switch with shunt configuration has constant isolation characteristics without any degradation as operation frequencies increase. These both switches also have excellent performance characteristics over the higher frequency regime at the ultra low voltage operation.
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