Actively formed gold dual anchor structures-based RF MEMS tunable capacitor

In this article, an actively formed dual anchor structure was newly designed and applied to improve the tuning range and mechanical reliability of an RF micro electromechanical system (MEMS) tunable capacitor. To construct the dual anchor structure, metal dimples, which are formed on the centers of hinges, are placed in contact with metal posts before pull-in occurs, resulting in the formation of second anchors. The measured tuning ranges of the fabricated MEMS tunable capacitors with and without dual anchors were 59.2% and 28.3% at the applied voltage ranging from 0 V until pull-in voltages of 17 and 9 V, respectively. The fabricated tunable capacitor also exhibited high quality factors of 80.63 and 61.19 at 5 GHz and the applied voltages of 0 and 16 V, respectively. Its size/volume is 1.032 × 1.628 × 0.0089 (H) mm3. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:1451–1454, 2015

Publication