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RF-MEMS switches with AlN dielectric and their applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2011

Montserrat Fernández-Bolaños Badía ,
Pierre Nicole  and
Adrian Mihai Ionescu
Montserrat Fernández-Bolaños Badía*
Affiliation:
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Nanolab, Switzerland. Phone: +41 21 693 3973.
Pierre Nicole
Affiliation:
THALES Airborne Systems, Elancourt, France.
Adrian Mihai Ionescu
Affiliation:
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Nanolab, Switzerland. Phone: +41 21 693 3973.
*
Corresponding author: M. Fernández-Bolaños Badía Email: montserrat.fernandez-bolanos@epfl.ch
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Abstract

This paper reports on the potential of RF-MEMS technology based on aluminum nitride capacitive dielectric and nickel-suspended membranes to provide RF circuit functions in reconfigurable front-end radios. The RF performance of capacitive switches, distributed MEMS transmission lines (DMTLs) phase shifters for beam steering and tunable filters, including center frequency and bandwidth tuning of bandpass and band-stop filters are presented. Detailed characterization based on S-parameter data demonstrates very promising figures of merit of all fabricated demonstrators from 5 to 40 GHz.

Keywords

RF MEMS switchphase shiftertunable filtermodellingsimulation and characterization of devices and systems
Type
Research Papers
Information
International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies , Volume 3 , Special Issue 5: RF MEMS , October 2011 , pp. 509 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association 2011

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References

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