RF MEMS Switches Based on the Buckle-beam Thermal Actuator

In this paper, we propose series and parallel RF MEMS-switch configurations based on the buckle-beam thermal actuator. We demonstrate the feasibility of using this actuator in RF applications with processes and materials of standard microelectronics technology. The designed switches achieve simulated on-state insertion loss of 0.09 dB and off-state isolation of -19 dB @ 2 GHz. To ease the computation of the actuator displacement, we present a simple analytical model which is validated through the results obtained from simulations in CoventorWare¿ and Sugar softwares.

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