Electrothermally‐actuated RF‐MEMS suspended parallel switch

This article presents an electrothermally‐actuated lateral resistive‐contact RF‐MEMS parallel switch for application to low GHz wireless communication bands. The device is driven by a metal electrothermal actuator, which achieves large displacements and contact forces at much lower temperatures than conventional polysilicon electrothermal actuators. It was manufactured on a standard low‐resistivity substrate and its RF performance was improved by suspending the structures 25 μm from the substrate. Measured (at 1 GHz) insertion loss is −0.11 dB, return loss −41 dB, and isolation −22 dB.