Design of a New Radio-Frequency Switch Topology with Very Low Polarization Current

Abstract

Embedded systems are generally powered by batteries, characterized by a limited duration of electrical energy storage. For that, low power consuming RF components are often used. This work focuses on the design of a new RF switch based on one varicap diode within a series/parallel circuit topology. The latter is low-power-consuming in both ON and OFF mode and inhibits eventual nonlinearities caused by series diodes such as common PIN diodes. Before performing simulations, the diode has been characterized experimentally in the whole UHF band of interest and the extracted S-parameters have been used in the simulations of the resonating structure. The optimized switch has been measured and has showed a good agreement with simulated results in terms of high isolation (50 dB) and low insertion loss (0.1 dB). These results showed better performances compared to other structures based on RF MEMS, PIN diode or FET transistor devices, available in the literature.