Wideband DC-contact MEMS series switch

The demonstration of a wideband DC-contact MEMS series switch on an alumina substrate is reported. The switch is based on a cantilever beam design. The tip of the cantilever beam was formed into a fork tip design, and its RF performance was measured and compared with a regular rectangular tip. This design reduced up-state capacitance from 10 to 3.8 fF. The beam with fork tip exhibited high isolation: −39, −32 and −17.3 dB at 5, 10 and 77 GHz, respectively. The measured insertion loss was −0.142, −0.172 and 0.36 dB at 5, 10 and 77 GHz, respectively. The switch had low actuation voltage (≤39 V) and a relatively fast switching time of 45 µs. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a high-performance cantilever beam design DC-contact MEMS series switch at W-band frequencies.