The design of RF MEMS switches involves several disciplines: mechanics, materials science and electrical engineering. While significant progress has been made in the RF design of the switches, mechanical and material studies are required for mass commercialization of reliable devices. Senturia and co-workers at MIT have presented a closed form solution to describe the electromechanical behavior...

During this project the research focused on the following topics: a) the development of a MEMS reconfigurable Sierpinski antenna on LCP substrate; b) the development of a low cost localized packaging technique for RF MEMS switches integrated on a multilayer organic substrate (this is extremely important for the switch reliability that will be required in the reconfigurable antenna system); c) t...

The K-band microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) tunable band-pass filter, with a wide-frequency tunable range and miniature size, is able to fulfill the requirements of the multiband satellite communication systems. A novel 21.69–24.36 GHz MEMS tunable band-pass filter is designed, analyzed, fabricated and measured. This paper also designs and analyzes an inductively tuned slow-wave resonator,...

In the current communications market, there exists a great demand for devices, which function as passive signal processing units. High performance and small size are identified to be the bottlenecks to meet market demand in communications area[1,3]. MEMS or micromachining technology can yield small, low weight and high performance components to replace the currently used off-chip components. Th...

Introduction Consumer demand for highly personalized, ubiquitous access to information continues to increase rapidly. Growing volumes of data traffic and demands for higher quality products and services have driven the proliferation of new portable and fixed communications. Suppliers of wireless and wire line communications are being challenged to provide more features, bandwidth, and talk time...

This paper represents the impact of beam thickness and air gap upon the performance of cantilever MEMS switches having different beam materials (Al, Au metals). A comparative analysis of spring constant, effective mass, pull-in voltage, capacitance of cantilever based MEMS switch has been performed by 3D simulation using COMSOL Multiphysics based on Finite Element Method [FEM]. Different parame...

An experimental setup for the characterization of electromagnetic induced heat on MEMS devices undertaking high RF power regime (> 5W) is here proposed. The technique is based on infrared (IR) imaging of on-probe DUT, while it is in working conditions. The measured temperature distributions, for different working state of a RF-MEMS switch, are given. The results show that for a first considered...

A novel test facility for the efficient evaluation of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switches and the development of alternative contact materials is described. The facility utilizes the upper cantilever from commercial MEMS contact switches, and tests these against alternative bottom contact materials within a modified atomic force microscope (AFM). The test closely approximates the real...

We describe a modular MEMS based optical cross-connect switch. Each module has 16portF with closed-loop servo-controlled mirrors. We hove achieved switching times of < I O ms, ercellent optical power stabilig, and immunity to stochastic vibrations.

A review of radio frequency microelectromechanical systems (RF MEMS) technology, from the perspective of its enabling technologies (e.g. fabrication, RF micromachined components and actuation mechanisms) is presented. A unique roadmap is given that shows how enabling technologies, RF MEMS components, RF MEMS circuits and RF microsystems packaging are linked together; leading towards enhanced in...