Operating Analysis of DC and RF Characteristics of RF MEMS Capacitive Coupled Shunt Switches by Geometrical Modifications and Material Selection

This paper critically analyses the DC and RF performance of RF MEMS capacitive coupled switches with respect to changing beam geometry. Switches are designed for operation in the range 10-40 GHz. Pull-in analysis of the switch is performed with aluminum, gold, titanium and platinum as the membrane material. Simulation reveals that for the same geometry, actuation voltage of the switch with aluminum beam is 18.75 V and that with platinum beam is 27.1875 V. RF analysis shows that insertion loss as low as 0.2 dB and isolation as high as 60 dB can be achieved by proper switch design. Design and DC analysis of the proposed switch is carried out using CoventorWare 2010 and RF performance by High frequency Structure simulator (Ansoft HFSS) v 13.0