Dynamic Properties of Three-Terminal Tungsten CMOS-NEM Relays Under Nonlinear Tapping Mode

Nanomechanical Motion Transducers for Miniaturized Mechanical Systems

“…Capacitive detection with impedance transformation was also used at milliKelvin temperatures for nanoresonator-based read-out of a superconducting charge qubit [ 148 ]. Another elaborate way to use capacitive detection for nanoscale motion is to integrate the CMOS readout circuitry monolithically with the NEMS device [ 149 , 150 , 151 ]. By fabricating the amplifier next to the resonator, the issue of parasitic capacitance is virtually eliminated and an entire measurement system with extremely small device area is obtained.…”

A Phase-Domain Readout Circuit for a CMOS-Compatible Hot-Wire CO2Sensor

“…1(a) shows a cross section of the CMOS-compatible transducer used in this paper, which is the same as that reported in [14]. It consists of a suspended tungsten wire made in the via layer of the metal stack of a 0.16-μm CMOS process, which is released by means of a single etching step, using an approach similar to that described in [27]. As shown in Fig.…”

High Performance Seesaw Torsional CMOS-MEMS Relay Using Tungsten VIA Layer

“…Additionally, the high number of metal layers used in the advanced CMOS technology nodes make very attractive the exploitation of a CMOS-MEMS platform for using metal layers, not only as an electrical connection path, but also to provide some active processing using these layers as embedded MEMS devices [ 6 , 7 ]. Despite this interest in obtaining functional mechanical switching devices embedded in CMOS, most of the presented examples from the literature are only CMOS-compatible [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ], with few of them being really embedded in CMOS [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. In all cases, the devices are far from possessing all of the ideal characteristics (low contact resistance, low operation voltage and high yield).…”

“…Concerning papers with MEMS relays embedded in CMOS, similar problems are encountered. Papers using the same CMOS-MEMS tungsten-based relay as presented in this paper, but with different configurations and designs, suffers from these non-ideal characteristics: Reference [ 13 ] presents a torsional relay with a high pull-in voltage and below one hundred operation cycling; References [ 14 , 15 ] are based on lateral relays exhibiting in both cases a high contact resistance (1 MΩ and 750 MΩ in References [ 14 , 15 ], respectively). Even higher contact resistances and low cycling operation are encountered in other CMOS-MEMS approaches: In Reference [ 16 ], contact resistance is greater than 500 MΩ and 30 operation cycles; in Reference [ 17 ], the contact resistance is in the GΩ range and only 10 operation cycles.…”

“…The use of the tungsten VIA3 has been demonstrated previously for MEMS devices: resonators for monolithically CMOS-MEMS stand-alone oscillators [ 18 , 19 ], relays for switching applications [ 13 , 14 , 15 ], and very recently as CO 2 transducers [ 20 ]. All these applications demonstrate the importance of the approach and the opportunity to explore new MEMS structures and devices based on this tungsten VIA3 approach.…”