Title of thesis: MEMS CONVEYANCE: PIEZOELECTRIC ACTUATOR ARRAYS FOR RECONFIGURABLE RF CIRCUITS Mary Claire Tellers, Master of Science 2015 Thesis directed by: Professor Sarah Bergbreiter Department of Mechanical Engineering An array of piezoelectric cantilevers was designed, fabricated, and characterized for use as a micromanipulation surface in a reconfigurable RF circuit microfactory. The pro...

The case study presented in this paper is a demonstration of our mixed-signal, multi-domain system level simulation tool Chatoyant. We have developed Chatoyant to support modeling and simulating of microopto-electro-mechanical systems. In this paper we demonstrate the capabilities of Chatoyant to model and simulate an RF MEMS shunt switch. We perform a system level simulation of the RF switch a...

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices have been increasing in popularity for radio frequency (RF) and microwave communication systems due to the ability of MEMS devices to improve the performance of these circuits and systems. This interdisciplinary field combines the aspects of lithographic fabrication, mechanics, materials science, and RF/microwave circuit technology to produce moving...

This paper reports on the design, fabrication, and measurement of a novel radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) tunable all-silicon evanescent-mode cavity-based resonator that simultaneously achieves high quality factor and fast response speed. The resonator is based on a 1.5-mm-deep silicon-etched cavity attached to a gold-coated silicon substrate with an array of 75 185-μ...

Mechanical modeling of RF MEMS switches is important for performance optimization and device reliability. 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D linear analytical models have been proposed to analyze the electrostatic pull-in of a fixed-fixed beam at small deflection. However, most RF MEMS switch structures work at large deflection range. In this paper, 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D nonlinear analytical models suitable for lar...

This paper discusses sputtered silicon encapsulation as a wafer level packaging approach for isolatable MEMS devices. Devices such as accelerometers, RF switches, inductors, and filters that do not require interaction with the surroundings to function, could thus be fully encapsulated at the wafer level after fabrication. A MEMSTech 50g capacitive accelerometer was used to demonstrate a sputter...

This paper presents an investigation into the viability of a new route for the fabrication of titanium-based MEMS RF switches for harsh environment applications. Titanium’s intrinsic toughness and corrosion resistance suggest that it would be highly suitable for such applications and recently developed titanium micromachining technologies now make exploration of this potential possible. Two des...

We present a reconfigurable spiral antenna for use in adaptive MIMO systems. The antenna is capable of changing the sense of polarization of the radiated field. It is fabricated by using an RF-MEMS technology compatible withmicrowave laminate substrates developed within the author’s group. The proposed antenna structure is built on a number of rectangular-shaped bent metallic strips interconnec...