This paper addresses experimental RF performance evaluation, and electrical-parameter extraction of different-size ferroelectric varactor shunt switches. Ferroelectric varactor shunt-switch operation is based on the nonlinear dielectric tunability of a Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 (BST) thin film sandwiched between two metal layers in a parallel-plate configuration. Coplanar-waveguide implementation of the varactor shunt switch results in a high-speed RF switch, through a simple two-metal layer Si MMIC compatible process on high-resistivity Si substrates. The experimental RF performance of the switches shows low insertion loss for smaller-area devices, with good isolation for larger-area devices. To optimize the device design, the rf performances of multiple devices are tested, and the electrical parameters are extracted. The capacitance of the varactor shunt switches tested are tunable by more than 4:1 for bias voltages below 12 V. The switching speed of the devices tested is approximately 43 ns, based on the step-response measurements.
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Subramanyam et al. (2005) studied this question.