Abstract

This paper presents a metal-to-metal contact MEMS shunt switch suitable for DC-40 GHz applications. A novel pull-down electrode is used which applies the electrostatic force at the same lo-cation as the metal-to-metal contact area. A contact resistance of 0.15 − 0.35 is repeatably achieved, and results in an isolation of − 40 dB at 0.1-3 GHz. The measured isolation is still better than − 20 dB at 40 GHz. The DC-contact shunt switch is used in a se-ries/ shunt design to result in − 60 dB isolation at 5 GHz and bet-ter than − 40 dB up to 40 GHz. The application areas are in high-isolation/ low-loss switches for telecommunication and radar systems.