Design and analysis of capacitive RF MEMS switch with step structure and meander spring for cellular communication

摘要

An electrostatically actuating capacitive RF MEMS switch with a rare step structure and meander spring is designed and analysed in this work. The materials for the dielectric medium between the RF switch and transmission electrode preferred for this work are zirconium dioxide (ZrO_2), niobium pentoxide (Nb_2O_5), and titanium dioxide (TiO_2). Simulations were carried out to investigate the operation of the switch based on the electromechanical and RF parameters. An actuation voltage of 3.88 V with TiO_2 as the dielectric was achieved in the proposed switch with a 2 μm air gap. The radio frequency analysis of the suggested switch achieved maximum isolation of-41.85 dB at 3 GHz with TiO_2 as dielectric and insertion loss of -0.01 dB to -0.16 dB for all the configurations of the designed switch at 1 GHz-30 GHz. The proposed capacitive radio frequency MEMS switch fits well for high radio frequency cellular communication applications.