A Packaged MEMS-Based 5-bit $X$ -Band High-Pass/Low-Pass Phase Shifter

This paper demonstrates the first packaged microelectromechanical systems-based phase shifter using high-pass/low-pass circuit topology. The device was fabricated with a process resembling available low-cost commercial Si and SiGe processes, and demonstrates an average loss of 4.5 dB with an rms phase error better than 10deg for 8-12 GHz. Thermal compression bonding is used to package the phase shifter with hermeticity confirmed by Military Standard 883G, Method 1014.12. The total shifter area is 9.2 mm2. Performance is compared to and found competitive with phase shifters using more expensive GaAs and BST technologies, which are less easily used in system-on-chip applications.

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