The Impact of Dielectric Material and Temperature on Dielectric Charging in RF MEMS Capacitive Switches

Papaioannou, George

doi:10.1007/978-90-481-3807-4_11

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Indeed, the dielectric charging in RF MEMS switches is at the origin of failure and low reliability of capacitive switches with electrostatic actuation [9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Charge trapping on the surface and in the volume of the dielectric layer leads to significant increase of the surface potential and to modification of the values of applied voltage for switch actuation in a way that after certain number of events the switch is out of control.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dielectric Engineering of Nanostructured Layers to Control the Transport of Injected Charges in Thin Dielectrics

Makasheva

Villeneuve-Faure

Bonafos

et al. 2016

IEEE Trans. Nanotechnology

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1 -New concept concerning dielectric engineering is presented in this work aiming at a net improvement of the performance of dielectric layers in RF MEMS capacitive switches with electrostatic actuation and an increase of their reliability. Instead of synthesis of new dielectric materials we have developed a new class of dielectric layers that gain their performance from design rather than from composition. Two kinds of nanostructured dielectrics are presented. They consist of: (i) silicon oxynitride layers (SiO x N y :H) with gradual variation of their properties (discrete or continuous), and (ii) organosilicon (SiO x C y :H) and/or silica (SiO 2 ) layers with tailored interfaces; a single layer of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) is embedded in the vicinity of the dielectric free surface. The nanostructured dielectric layers were deposited in a plasma process. They were structurally characterized and tested under electrical stress and environmental conditions typical for RF MEMS operation. The charge injection and decay dynamics were probed by Kelvin Force Microscopy (KFM). Modulation of the conductive properties of the nanostructured layers over 7 orders of magnitude is achieved. Compared to dielectric mono-layers, the nanostructured ones exhibit much shorter charge retention times. They appear to be promising candidates for implementation in RF MEMS capacitive switches with electrostatic actuation, and more generally for applications where surface charging must be avoided.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different dielectric layers have been tested in order to improve the performance of RF MEMS capacitive switches [14,15]. In general, dielectric layers with high dielectric constant are favored because of the resultant high capacitance ratio between "on" and "off" states of the switch.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dielectric Engineering of Nanostructured Layers to Control the Transport of Injected Charges in Thin Dielectrics

Makasheva

Villeneuve-Faure

Bonafos

et al. 2016

IEEE Trans. Nanotechnology

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“…In all cases it was reported that macroscopically it follows the stretched exponential law. This behavior has been attributed to the fact that the charge collection is complex because the dielectric film is deposited at low temperatures, fact that leads to highly disordered materials, which deviate from stoichiometry and contain large concentration of defects [11,12]. Finally, the investigation of temperature effect on the dielectric charging in silicon nitride based MEMS has revealed that the process is thermally activated and attributed to hopping in a continuum of trap states, where the hopping is expected to be variable rather than nearest neighbor [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Charge collection mechanism in MEMS capacitive switches

Koutsoureli

Michalas

Papaioannou

2012

2012 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS)

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The present paper investigates the effect of stressing bias magnitude and stressing time on the discharging process in MEMS capacitive switches. The calculation of discharge current through the dielectric film is based on monitoring the rate of shift of bias for up-state minimum capacitance. The data analysis shows that the discharge current lies in the range of femto-Amperes and the calculated discharge time constant depends directly on the time window of observation and on the stressing conditions. Moreover the analysis reveals an increase of trapped charge that remains in the bulk of the dielectric film for very long time as the stressing bias increases. The dominant discharge process, taking place under an intrinsic field of about 10 3 V/cm, is found to be the hopping effect.

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“…The dielectric films used in MEMS switches are highly disordered materials, which deviate from stoichiometry and contain a large density of dipoles and defects [2][3][4]. The presence of high electric fields during actuation results to charge injection in the dielectric films, fact that causes erratic device behavior and limits the device lifetime [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature effects on the bulk discharge current of dielectric films of MEMS capacitive switches

Koutsoureli

Michalas

Papaioannou

2012

Microelectronics Reliability

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a b s t r a c tKelvin probe method has been directly applied to capacitive MEMS switches in order to investigate temperature activated mechanisms in PECVD Silicon Nitride (SiN x ) films. The bulk discharge current of MEMS capacitive switches has been determined for different charging and discharging temperatures, in the range of 300-400 K. The increase of discharging temperature leads to an increase of the magnitude of the bulk discharge current and the relaxation time of the discharging process is found to be thermally activated. Finally, it is shown that the increase of charging temperature assists trapping at centers characterized by time constants even longer than the time window of observation, i.e. 10 4 s.

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The Impact of Dielectric Material and Temperature on Dielectric Charging in RF MEMS Capacitive Switches

Cited by 8 publications

References 41 publications

Dielectric Engineering of Nanostructured Layers to Control the Transport of Injected Charges in Thin Dielectrics

Dielectric Engineering of Nanostructured Layers to Control the Transport of Injected Charges in Thin Dielectrics

Charge collection mechanism in MEMS capacitive switches

Temperature effects on the bulk discharge current of dielectric films of MEMS capacitive switches

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