Reconfigurable reflectarrays require low-loss and lowdispersion active cells in order to achieve efficient beam scanning or beam shaping on a large bandwidth. The low-loss constraint is the more stringent as the introduction of tunable components (such as MEMS) in resonant phase-shifting cells may dramatically decrease their quality factor. In this paper, a comprehensive review of recent develo...

Abstract In this paper we present design and analysis of RF MEMS switches with crab-leg connection beam structures. The mechanical characteristics of switch including pull down voltage, hysteresis analysis and capacitance between beam and center conductor are studied. RF characterization of the switch including insertion loss, return loss and isolation are also investigated. Measurement results...

This paper presents a novel design of single-pole four-throw (SP4T) RF-MEMS switch employing both capacitive and ohmic switches. It is designed on high-resistivity silicon substrate and has a compact area of 1.06 mm(2). The series or ohmic switches have been designed to provide low insertion loss with good ohmic contact. The pull-in voltage for ohmic switches is calculated to be 7.19 V. Shunt o...

We built and evaluated a hybrid electrical-packet/optical-circuit network for datacenters using a 10 μs optical circuit switch using wavelength-selective switches based on binary MEMs. This network has the potential to support large-scale, dynamic datacenter workloads. © 2013 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 060.4250, 060.4253,060.6718.

Three-dimensional multiphysics finite element analysis (FEA) was performed to investigate the reliability of RF MEMS switches at various operational temperatures. The investigated MEMS capacitive switch consists of a freestanding metal membrane actuated by a bottom electrode coated by a dielectric film. Coupled-field simulations between thermal, structural and electrostatic domains were perform...

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...

This paper reports on a comparison of gold and gold–nickel alloys as contact materials for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) switches. Pure gold is commonly used as the contact material in low-force metal-contact MEMS switches. The top two failure mechanisms of these switches are wear and stiction, which may be related to the material softness and the relatively high surface adhesion, respe...

This paper reports material selection methodology for radio frequency — micro electro mechanical systems (RF-MEMS) switches used for reconfigurable antennas. As there are variety of materials available to design engineer, a proper technique to select the best possible material is needed. Three primary performance indices, pull-in voltage, RF-loss, and thermal residual stress, are used to obtain...

In this paper, a frequency reconfigurable active array antenna (RAA) system, which can be reconfigurable at three different frequency bands, is proposed. The proposed RAA system is designed with a novel frequency reconfigurable front-end amplifiers (RFA) with the simple reconfigurable impedance matching circuits (RMC) with the MEMS switches. With the MEMS switch, the RFA is realized without any...

In this paper, we present three hierarchical multiscale architectures that are interconnected electrooptically at micro-scale level and via spin waves at nanoscale level. These architectures are derived from the Optical Reconfigurable Mesh (ORM), which is a MEMS architecture that supports several types of electrical and optical routings. The first multi-scale architecture presented here is a st...