Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) RF components for millimeterwave reconfigurable transceivers are investigated. The components include reconfigurable Vee-antennas, sliding planar impedance tuners, microswitches and variable capacitors. These different components are fabricated using the same three-layer-polysilicon surface micromachining techniques. In this work, we focus on the demonstration of component architectures and the integration issues. The reconfigurability of the Vee-antenna is demonstrated with beam-steering and beam-shaping functionality. The antenna characteristics are also studied. The planar feature of the Vee-antennas allows integration of planar impedance tuners. The antenna impedance can be matched dynamically by two shunt sliding planar backshort impedance tuners. The tuning ranges of planar backshort impedance tuners on different transmission lines are studied. The mechanical architectures for microswitches, parallel-plate variable capacitors and circular variable capacitors are also investigated.
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