1,720,968 research outputs found
High Performance RF-MEMS cantilever switch
No full textThis paper presents the design and fabrication of a new cantilever MEMS switch with very high performance for microwave and radiofrequency applications. The beam and the contact mechanism have been optimized in order to guarantee a repeatable and very low resistance contact. In particular the parallel of 7 gold cupped dimples has been utilized in order to obtain a total contact resistance lower than 1 Ohm. A microstrip prototype has been fabricated on a 525 %m high resistivity silicon substrate by using the micromachining process at ITC-irst in Trento, Italy. The manufacturing process has been refined in order to minimize the gradient stress among the different materials constituting the beam conductor. This prevented the beam tip from bending thus leading to a very good agreement between the theoretical and measured actuation voltage, which is around 50V. RF mmeasurements up to 15GHz have been performed showing a switch insertion loss better than 0.1 dB in the entire frequency band
MEMS Switches with Stepped Pull-Down Voltage for Tunable Phase Shifters
No full textNovel MEMS switches with stepped pull-down voltage are introduced for applications in MEMS-tunable phase shifters. A dual band phase shifter has been designed employing four couples of those ohmic contact MEMS switches, each one designed to have a different pull-down voltage in the range of 12-60 Volts with an increasing step of about 15 Volts. A significant reduction of the biasing network complexity is achieved, allowing to reconfigure the phase shifter by using a single control signal. The electromechanical and electromagnetic design of the single switches as well as the complete device are presented in this paper. The devices are designed on a 525 μm high resistivity silicon substrate, employing the ITC-irst well-established eight-mask surface micro-machining process. The fabrication is presently in progress at Itc-irst laboratories in Trento, Italy
Design and manufacturing of different K-band integrated MEMS phase shifters for electronic beam scanning antennas
No full textDevelopment of different K-band MEMS phase shifter designs for Satellite COTM Terminals
No full textThis work presents the design, manufacturing and testing of three 5-bit K-band MEMS phase shifters based on similar architectures (combination of switched line and loaded line) but employing different MEMS switch typologies (cantilevers & air-bridges) and RF junctions (SP2T & SP4T). All devices have been monolithically manufactured on 200 μm thick high resistivity silicon substrate (4”) by using the FBK MEMS process. The performance of the different devices have been compared in order to identify the best configuration to be implemented in electronically steerable phased arrays antennas for Satellite COTM (Communication On The Move) Terminals. Excellent performances were measured for the dielectric-free pad MEMS switches as well as the single bits constituting the phase shifter. The three 5-bit devices show return loss better than 15 dB for all states, with average insertion loss of 3.5dB for the clamped-clamped, SP2T-based design, 2.2 dB for the cantilever, SP2T-based device and 2.1 dB for the cantilever, SP4T-based design. The measurements of the packaged devices are on-going
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