This paper presents the design, fabrication and characterization of an RF MEMS switch. Low actuation voltage and high isolation of the switch were achieved by exploiting buckling and bending effects induced by well-controlled residual stress. The effects of residual stress on improving the switch performance have been investigated using both analytical and numerical methods. The proposed RF switch has been fabricated by surface micromachining. The minimum actuation voltage of the fabricated switch was measured to be 10.2 V. At a 5 GHz signal frequency, the measured insertion loss and isolation are 0.21 dB and −44 dB, respectively. These results demonstrate that low voltage and high isolation of RF MEMS switches can be achieved with proper utilization of residual stresses.

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This paper presents the design methodology, fabrication and characterization of flip-chip bonded MEMS capacitor for tuning high temperature superconductive resonator. Because the main issue of MEMS capacitor integrated with high temperature superconductor (HTS) is high driving voltage due to accumulated thermal stress, a methodology to decrease the thermal stress is discussed. In this work, the thermal stress can be reduced to several MPa, and driving voltage is about 40V. To avoid degradation of HTS thin film during MEMS process, MEMS capacitor is fabricated separately and then flip-chip bonded on the HTS resonator. The tuning effects of this MEMS capacitor applied on HTS resonator of 3GHz resonant frequency are presented.