Design and Analysis of a Low Voltage RF MEMS Shunt Switch for Reconfigurable Antennas
Jija Rajmohan1, M.R.Baiju2
1Jija Rajmohan, Department of Electronicsand Communication, College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
2M.R. Baiju, Department of Electronics and Communication, College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
Manuscript received on November 27, 2013. | Revised Manuscript received on December 17, 2013. | Manuscript published on December 30, 2013. | PP: 414-418 | Volume-3, Issue-2, December 2013. | Retrieval Number: B2504123213/2013©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: RF MEMS switches can be used to achieve reconfigurability of various RF systems and in particular, that of miniaturized antenna structures. In the case of micromachined antennas, which involve low voltage signals, RF MEMS switches with low actuation voltage are required for achieving reconfigurability . The capacitive shunt switch derives its switching property from the significant difference of its capacitance in the up-state and down-state. The actuation voltage of RF MEMS switches mainly depends on the spring constant of the switch membrane. In this paper, a low actuation voltage capacitive shunt switch suitable to be used along with micromachined antennas, is presented. A process flow for the fabrication is designed and simulated using Intellisuite. The electromechanical analysis results are presented and compared with that of a fixed- fixed flexure based switch membrane to establish the low actuation voltage characteristics of the proposed design.
Keywords: RF MEMS Switches, Actuation voltage, Reconfigurablity.