Low-Voltage Capacitive and Ohmic RF-MEMS Switches

This work presents experimental results of capacitive and ohmic-contact RF-MEMS switches. The suspension has been designed to compensate stress-gradient effects, and to obtain low pull-in voltages. The measured actuation voltage is 12 V for devices with an air gap of 1.3 um. The measured isolation of the capacitive switches is better than 20 dB for frequencies above 15 GHz, and better than 30 dB from 31 GHz up to 80 GHz according to simulations. The ohmic-contact switch can be used to control the odd mode in coplanar waveguide (CPW) reconfigurable multimodal circuits. The CPW odd-mode isolation of the ohmic-contact switch in its down state is better than 20 dB up to 8 GHz and better than 10 dB up to 30 GHz.