Variable Spring Constant, High Contact Force RF MEMS Switch

Hojr Sedaghat-Pisheh and Gabriel M. Rebeiz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California San Diego (UCSD),
San Diego, CA 92093, USA

Abstract

This paper presents the design, fabrication and

(a)

VApplied =0

measurements on a novel metal-contact RF MEMS switch with

RF-IN

variable spring constant and high contact and release forces. The
spring constant of the switch dramatically increases when the

contact force and restoring force of 0.6 - 1.1 mN and a 0.5 mN,

(b)

VApplied =0

respectively, for an actuation voltage of 75-90 V. The measured

<

\
RF Pad

PUll-down Electrode

when the tip touches a dielectric block. This design shows a total

RF-OUT

applied voltage is larger than the threshold voltage (VI)' defined

switching time is

V Applied> VP

RF-IN

lOllS. The switch is an excellent candidate for

high performance microwave applications requiring high power

V Applied> VP

....

handling and a large contact force.

Index Terms

S
RF-OUT

RF MEMS, Microelectromechanical (MEMS)

devices, switches, microwave switches.

VApplied =0
I. INTRODUCTION

RF MEMS switches have shown state-of-the-art

performance such as low insertion loss, high isolation, and
outstanding linearity [I]. The cantilever-based RF MEMS
switch, developed by Northeastern and Radant MEMS, has
shown outstanding reliability at 0.1-10 W [2, 3]. Several other
electrostatic metal-contact switches have also demonstrated
good reliability [4-10]. The Radant MEMS [2] and Omron [5]
switches have high contact and release forces (> 0.5 mN).
The reliability of RF MEMS devices is directly related to
the contact and release forces. A higher contact force allows
the use of refractory metals, while a higher release force
allows the switch to overcome the metal-to-metal adhesion
and to release to the up-state position. Refractory metal
switches result in a relatively high contact resistance (2-8 Q),
but have shown to result in extremely reliable switches [2],
while gold-based switches result in a very low contact
resistance (1-2 Q) but have high adhesion forces. An optimal
switch design allows for both large contact and release forces,
and at relatively lower voltages, so as to reduce dielectric
charging in the substrate or in any dielectric layers (if used).
A two-position cantilever-based design was presented in [9]
and resulted in 0.44-0.75 mN total contact force at 20-30 V
with a release force of 0.17 mN. The design is based on a
large pull-down electrode at the end of the cantilever, and it
was found that dielectric charging, even if small, can seriously
affect the contact forces and reliability. This paper presents a
novel two-position design which can achieve relatively large
contact and release forces and without any biased voltage
placed on a metal-to-dielectric contact.

PUll-down Electroaes
(Connected)

Dielectric

(c)

V Applied> Vp
RF-IN

RF Pads
(Connected)

Fig. 1.
(a) Conventional switch before and after actuation [2]
(b) Hitachi/Michigan switch before and after actuation [9] (c)
high contact force design before and after actuation.

Pull-down Electrodes
(Connected)
Fig. 2.

RF Pads
(Connected)

Cross section of the switch with the electrostatic forces

and moments.

II. THEORY AND DESIGN

The ultimate goal in the design of a metal-contact RF

MEMS switch is to achieve high contact and restoring forces,
together with high isolation, and low insertion loss. However,
in most cases these characteristics are contradictory and lead
the designer to favor either the contact or release force. For
example, in the standard metal-contact switches the
electrostatic force is equal to the contact and restoring force
as:
F Electrostatic = F Restoring + F COnLact

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Therefore, with a fixed electrostatic force given by the size

of the pull-down electrode, applied voltage, and the gap in the
down-state position, if the contact force is increased, the
restoring force would be decreased and vice versa.
A.

As is well known, the spring constant and the length of the

beam are related as kcx L-3, where L is the length of the beam.
Therefore, "beam B", with a very short length, has a very high
kB. Practically, kB is 20-50x higher than kA and plays an
important role in the total restoring force value, even though
X2<Xl

Principle a/Operation

Fig. I (a) shows the conventional cantilever switch, a two

state switch [9] (Fig. lb), and the proposed switch with a pull
down electrode on both sides of the dimple (Fig. lc). When a
voltage is applied, the cantilever tip first touches the dielectric
at the VApplied=V" and then the dimple touches the RF pad at a
higher voltage (VAPplied=Vp).
A cross section of the actuated switch is shown in Fig. 2.
The switch has two pull-down electrodes which are connected
to each other. The smaller pull-down electrode has a small gap
with the beam and generates a high electric field and a large
force (F2). The large pull-down electrode has a bigger gap and
a lower electric field; but, due to its large area, the total force
(Fl) is relatively high. The two electrostatic forces "Fl" and
"F2" generate two large moments about the dimple point
which are:

VApplied

(a)

kA

=0

ks

=kA

(b)

U-'!X=X1
ks

x=o

=
_

(e)

(2)

(d)

These two moments and other moments from the anchors

should be balanced in a way that no collapse occurs over the
two pull-down electrodes. This can be modeled as a seesaw
where the dimple is the pivot and the seesaw arms are
composed of two beams from the dimple to the anchors (one
anchor is the tip touching the dielectric and one is the standard
cantilever anchor).

t
VApplied

(e)

This design results in a high electrostatic force which is

mostly due to the F2. The restoring force is increased by using
the second anchor at the tip of the switch. Fig. 3 (a-e)
illustrates an actuation cycle of the switch. Two beams A and
B are illustrated in Fig. 3a with springs of kA and kB inside the
beam, and equivalent springs kl and k2 for the total structure.
When the applied voltage is zero and beam is in its normal
position, kB is not even present because there is no anchor at
the tip and kl= kA. At VAPPliCd=V" the beam tip barely touches the
dielectric (Fig. 3b) and the dimple is now at position Xl' In the
model, kA is stretched and kB barely touches the dimple. From
this voltage on, both kA and kB act on the dimple. Therefore,
the equivalent spring is k2= kA + kB. At V=Vp (dimple touches
the RF pad), both kA and kB are stretched. Therefore, k2 = kA
+ kB using the same analogy.
Figs 3d and 3e are identical to Figs 3b and 3a respectively
when the applied voltage decreases from Vp to V, to 0 V. The
restoring force is the force that brings the dimple to contact
the RF Pad. The total restoring force is kjXj which is the
transition from Fig. 3(a) to 3(b) in addition to k2X2 which is
the transition from Fig. 3(b) to 3(c), and is

Fig. 3.

=0

One actuation cycle and equivalent models at the dimple.

Pull-Down Electrode

Fig. 4.

Top and side view of the high contact force design.

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B.

Design

measurement of the switch is done using optical profi1er

(WYKO) and the deflection of the beam is < 0.1 r-tm at the
dimple.
The S-parameter measurements were done in a standard
laboratory environment with a nitrogen shower in a non-sealed
chamber. The measured pull-down voltage ( Vp) is 47 V and
the measured release voltage (VJ is 43 V and agree well with
simulations.

The top and side views of the switch are shown in Fig. 4.
The switch dimensions are 150 r-tm x 170 r-tm. Two dimples
with diameter of 5 r-tm and thickness of 0.4 r-tm are used. The
gap is 1.2 r-tm and the thickness of the gold beam is 6.8 r-tm. A
0.3 r-tm thick layer of SiN is used as a dielectric pad for the tip
contact, and is exactly at the same height as the 0.3 r-tm layer
of gold used for the pull down electrode and the RF pad. A
IoooA of Ru is also deposited on the RF pad where the dimple
touches. Therefore, the metal contact is sputtered Au to Ru.
Mechanical analysis done by Coventorware [11] results in
kl = 119 N/m and Is = 2000 N/m, XI = 0.65 r-tm and = 0.15
r-tm. The threshold voltage of (V) and pull-down voltage (Vp)
and are simulated to be 35 V and 46 V, respectively.
The contact force and release force simulations were done
for t = 6.8 r-tm and is shown in Fig. 5. Also a t = 7.8 r-tm is
shown (kl = 162 N/m, k2 = 2400 N/m, XI = 0.65 r-tm and X2 =
0.15 r-tm, V, = 45 V and Vp= 55 V) and results in higher
contact force at a higher applied voltage.
1200
1000

.A.

800

50 IJm
.......

6.8 !-1m

t=7.8!-1m

Fig. 6. Microphotograph of the variable spring constant high

contact force switch.

2;Q)

0
LL

600

Measurements show that the switch resistance decreases

from 12 n to 0.6 n when the applied voltage increases from
55 V to 70 V showing the effect of the large contact force
(Fig. 7).
Fig. 8 presents the measured S-parameters of the switch in
the up- and down-state positions. The 50 n reference planes
are located 100 r-tm from the switch on both sides. The switch
can be modeled using a 22.2 fF capacitor in the up-state
position and a 0.6 n resistor in series with a 140 pH inductor
in the down-state position and agrees well with simulations.
The switching time has been measured using an 80 V
actuation voltage and it is < 10 r-ts from up-to-down position
and - 1 r-ts from down-to-up position (Fig. 9). The simulated fo
and Qrn are 46 kHz and - 0.5, respectively.

400
200
0

50

70
80
Applied Voltage (V)

60

90

Fig. 5.
Simulated total contact and release force vs. applied
voltage for different thicknesses (t= 6.8 r-tm, t= 7.8 r-tm)

III. FABRICATION AND MEASUREMENT

The switch was fabricated on a 400 r-tm thick high resistivity
silicon substrate (2.5 kn-cm) with a 0.25 r-tm thick oxide layer.
The process is very similar to the standard UCSD process
[10]. An additional dimple process has been developed for this
design. The dimple process starts with the spinning of 0.8 r-tm
of PMMA A9 followed by a deposition of 0.4 r-tm of Ti using
a sputtering system. Sacrificial layer is formed by etching the
Ti and PMMA and the dimple also formed by etching the Ti.
Fig. 6 shows an optical picture of the fabricated switch
(t=6.8 r-tm, gap=1.2 r-tm) in a 50 n CPW line. Flatness

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V. Conclusion
A high contact force, high release force switch based on a
"two-position" design has been demonstrated. The switch
allows many design variations so as to tailor the contact and
release forces as required by the choice of metal-contacts and
power handling. A Au-Ru metal contact was used and the
measured switch resistance dropped from 12 n to 0.6 n for an
applied voltage of 55 V to 70 V using this design.

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12
10

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was supported by the UCSD/DARPA Center on RF

Reliability and Design Fundamentals, Dr. Dennis
Polla, Program Monitor. The RF MEMS fabrication was done
2
in CalIT NAN03 facilities at UCSD.

--

MEMS

Meas.
Fitted

rY.

REFERENCES

Rs

O.6Q

G. M. Rebeiz, RF MEMS Theory, Design, and Technology, New

Jersey: J. Wiley & Sons, 2003.
[2] H. S. Newman, 1. L. Ebe, D. Judy, and 1. Maciel, "Lifetime
measurements on a high-reliability RF-MEMS contact switch,"
IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 18, no. 2, pp.
100-102, Feb. 2008.
[3] 1. Maciel, "A 10 W RF MEMS switch," Presentation in the
Advances in RF MEMS Workshop, in IEEE MTT-S Int.
Microwave Symp, June 2009.
[4] M. Sakata, Y. Komura, K. K. T. Sek and, K. Sano, and S. Horike,
"Micromachined relay which utilizes single crystal silicon
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systems, Orlando, FL, 1999, pp. 21-24.
[5] Y. Uno, K. Narise, T. Masuda, K. Inoue, Y. Adachi, K. Hosoya,
T. Seki, and F. Sato, "Development of SPDT-structured RF
MEMS switch," in IEEE Transducers, Denver, CO, June 2009,
pp. 541-544.
[6] D. A. Goins, R. D. Nelson, and J. S. McKillop, "Design of a 20
GHz low loss ohmic contact RF MEMS switch," in IEEE MTT
S Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., Honolulu, HI, June 2007, pp. 371374.
[7] 1. Costa, T. Ivanov, 1. Hammond, 1. Gering, E. Glass, J.
Jorgenson, D. Dening, D. Kerr, J. Reed, S. Crist, T. Mercier, S.
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SOl-CMOS," in IEEE Solid-State Sensors, Actuators, and
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[8] N. Nishijima, J.-1. Hung, and G. M. Rebeiz, "Parallel-contact
metalcontact RF MEMS switches for high power applications,"
in IEEE Int. Con! Microelectromech. Systems, Maastricht,
Netherlands, Jan. 2004, pp. 781-784.
[9] N. Nishijima, J.-1. Hung, and G. M. Rebeiz, "A low-voltage, high
contact force RF-MEMS switch," in IEEE MTT-S Int.
Microwave Symp. Dig., Fort Worth, TX, June 2004, pp. 577580.
[10] H. Sedaghat-Pisheh, J. Kim, and G. M. Rebeiz, "A novel
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Microelectromech. Systems, Sorrento, italy, Jan. 2009, pp. 2730.

[II] CoventorWare
version 2006, http://www.coventorware.com.
[I]

60

55

65

70

Applied Voltage (V)

Measured series switch resistance vs. applied voltage.

Fig. 7.
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R=O.60

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Freq(GHz)

20

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-50

Fig. 8.
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positions (V= 0, 70 V).

100

20

80
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Time (s)

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Measured switching time (V=80 V).

IMS 2010