Investigation methods and approaches for alleviating charge trapping phenomena in ohmic RF-MEMS switches submitted to cycling test

Abstract We propose and discuss a detailed reliability investigation of ohmic RF-MEMS switches, affected by high charge trapping phenomena, and we analyse how these test methods affect the study of charge trapping issues. We investigate the effect of three different parameters that have to be considered when cycling ohmic RF-MEMS switches. In particular the effect of the shape of the actuation pulse, the cycling frequency and the RF input power are analysed. Our experimental investigations show interesting trends and results that might help the analysis of ohmic RF-MEMS switches during cycling tests. These approaches, in fact, suggest how to better control and to reduce the charge trapping effect maximizing the lifetime of RF-MEMS switches.