Micromachined relay which utilizes single crystal silicon electrostatic actuator

Sakata, Minoru; Komura, Yoshiaki; Seki, T.; Kobayashi, Kazuyoshi; Sano, Kôkichi; Horiike, S.

doi:10.1109/memsys.1999.746745

Cited by 56 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…As a result of these advantages, in combination with silicon offering the largest variety of stable and standardized wafer-scale micromachining processes and highly developed etching tools, silicon is still the best suitable material for integrated microsystems with high demands on mechanical reliability [1]. Monocrystalline silicon has been successfully applied to a variety of MEMS devices including pressure sensors, accelerometers [51], undeformable sub-nm-flatness micromirror arrays [52], and robust microrelays [53,54].…”

Section: A) Monocrystalline Silicon As Structural and Electrical Matementioning

confidence: 99%

Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Sterner

Somjit

Shah

et al. 2011

Int. J. Microw. Wireless Technol.

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, antti ra ¤isa ¤nen 2 and joachim oberhammer 1 This paper presents an overview on novel microwave micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) device concepts developed in our research group during the last 5 years, which are specifically designed for addressing some fundamental problems for reliable device operation and robustness to process parameter variation. In contrast to conventional solutions, the presented device concepts are targeted at eliminating their respective failure modes rather than reducing or controlling them. Novel concepts of MEMS phase shifters, tunable microwave surfaces, reconfigurable leaky-wave antennas, multi-stable switches, and tunable capacitors are presented, featuring the following innovative design elements: dielectric-less actuators to overcome dielectric charging; reversing active/passive functions in MEMS switch actuators to improve recovery from contact stiction; symmetrical anti-parallel metallization for full stress-control and temperature compensation of composite dielectric/metal layers for free-standing structures; monocrystalline silicon as structural material for superior mechanical performance; and eliminating thin metallic bridges for high-power handling. This paper summarizes the design, fabrication, and measurement of devices featuring these concepts, enhanced by new characterization data, and discusses them in the context of the conventional MEMS device design.Keywords: RF MEMS, Reliability, MEMS design, Phase shifter, Tuneable capacitor, MEMS switch [12]. In general, RF MEMS devices are characterized by near-ideal signal handling performance in terms of insertion loss, isolation, linearity, large tuning range, and by keeping these performance parameters over a very large bandwidth [4,13]. I . I N T R O D U C T I O NMicrowave MEMS are RF MEMS devices that operate with signal frequencies above 30 GHz. With applications moving to higher frequencies, the performance advantages of MEMS devices over their competitors are getting larger. Also, at frequencies where the signal wavelengths are getting closer to the device dimensions, it is possible to miniaturize a complete RF system on a chip, and different ways of interaction between the microwave signals and the micromechanics lead to new possibilities of RF MEMS devices [47].Operational reliability, i.e. the ability of devices to work as specified over the whole lifetime, and robustness to process parameter variations, are key issues in RF MEMS design [14,48].Conventional RF MEMS designs are still characterized by some fundamental problems. Thin metallic bridges, for instance, found in many RF MEMS devices, such as switches and phase shifters, are susceptible to temperature-accelerated creep and fatigue, limiting the device life-time [14]. In contrast, monocrystalline silicon is a very robust MEMS structural material that is at the same time also suitable as RF dielectric material if high-resistivity silicon (HRS) is used [15,49].

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Section: A) Monocrystalline Silicon As Structural and Electrical Matementioning

confidence: 99%

Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Sterner

Somjit

Shah

et al. 2011

Int. J. Microw. Wireless Technol.

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“…Various actuation mechanisms have been used in microrelays, including electrostatic, electrothermal, and electromagnetic actuation. Among these, electrostatic actuation [2]- [19] is the most popular approach because it provides fast response time and consumes little power. However, electrostatic actuation force is typically weak, resulting in high contact resistance and possible contact welding during relay operation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microrelays With Bidirectional Electrothermal Electromagnetic Actuators and Liquid Metal Wetted Contacts

Cao

Yuen²,

Lin

2007

J. Microelectromech. Syst.

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Microrelays with liquid metal wetted contacts have been demonstrated using bidirectional electrothermal electromagnetic actuators. These relays were fabricated with the MetalMUMPs foundry process, which has a 20-µm-thick nickel structural layer. The operating voltage is under 0.5 V. The measured breakdown voltage and OFF-state resistance are greater than 200 V and 100 MΩ, respectively, and the gold-to-gold contact resistance is around 0.3 Ω. When the contacts are wetted with liquid gallium alloy (melting point at −20 • C), the measured contact resistance can be as low as 0.015 Ω. As such, these bidirectional relays could have potential applications in high-power switching systems with low contact resistance using liquid metal wetted contacts.[1706]

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“…One of the major failure modes which has been recently highlighted is material transfer from anode to cathode [1][2][3][4][5][6]. This phenomenon appears under non-arcing conditions in hot switching tests, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact degradation due to material transfer in MEM switches

Peschot

Poulain

Souchon

et al. 2012

Microelectronics Reliability

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Micromachined relay which utilizes single crystal silicon electrostatic actuator

Cited by 56 publications

References 2 publications

Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Microwave MEMS devices designed for process robustness and operational reliability

Microrelays With Bidirectional Electrothermal Electromagnetic Actuators and Liquid Metal Wetted Contacts

Contact degradation due to material transfer in MEM switches

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