Thermal analysis of RF-MEMS switches for power handling front-end

摘要

An experimental setup for the characterization of electromagnetic induced heat onMEMSdevices undertaking high RF power regime (> 5W) ishereproposed.The technique is based on infrared (IR) imaging of on-probe DUT, while it isin working conditions.Themeasured temperature distributions, for different working state of a RF-MEMS switch, are given. The results showthat for a first considered capacitive switch, the most critical working state is the OFF-state (membrane actuated). In this casethe hot-spots temperature reach75.5°C, for a input power of 6.3W at 10GHz. On the other hand, for the same incident power and frequency a maximum rise of only 5°C has been measured forthe ON-state (membrane in the restposition).Temperature mapping results for a second switch design are moreover presented.This steady-state map offers a real time global performance overview of the RF induced phenomena, and represents a very valuable real-time investigation tool for integrated MEMS and RFIC power handling front-end.