A single-crystal silicon DC-40 GHz RF MEMS switch

Abstract

This paper presents a new DC-40 GHz RF MEMS switch whose moving part is made of single-crystal silicon (SCS). Unlike thin-film metals commonly employed in RF MEMS switches, SCS is essentially defect-free, has well known and repeatable material properties and is virtually stress free. This makes the switch design insensitive to process variations and amenable to high-yield manufacturing. Measured RF switches exhibit an on state insertion loss of less than 0.3 dB and an off state isolation of higher than 30 dB up to 40 GHz. Measured switching time is less than 4 us.