Design and fabrication of a gold electroplated electromagnetic and electrostatic hybrid MEMS relay - art. no. 10R506

摘要

This paper reports on a gold electroplated hybrid microrelay that combines the advantages offered by electromagnetic and electrostatic actuation mechanisms. The microrelay design achieves signal by out-of-plane motion of a contact cross-bar fabricated on a diaphragm fixed at both ends to short the isolated input and output contacts. Major factors influencing the design approach include low contact resistance in the closed state, high signal isolation in the open state, latching upon loss of power, and fabrication robustness and cost. The MEMS device is surface micromachined with structures fabricated by electroplating gold through photoresist masks. Experimental results show that 95 of the devices can be actuated and approximate to 50 of them pass signal. The average contact resistance is about 170 m Omega and the system isolation is 70 dB at 20 MHz when a gold ground plane is added. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.