Semiconductor polymer-based RF MEMS and its applications to microwave systems

During the past decade, several new fabrication techniques have evolved which helped popularize micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), and numerous novel devices have been reported in diverse areas of engineering and science. One such area is microwave and millimeter wave systems. MEMS technology for microwave applications should solve many intriguing problems of high frequency technology for wireless communications. The recent and dramatic developments of personal communication devices forced the market to acquire miniaturized efficient devices, which is possible only by the development of RF MEMS. Semiconductor-polymer based sensors use silicon or compound semiconductors as inorganic parts with sensitive polymers as insulating, semiconducting or conductive materials. Organic thin film transistor has also been fabricated using this concept. These devices may allow control circuitry to be integrated with two or three dimensional MEMS. Interdigital type RF-MEMS can be designed and fabricated with Interdigtial Electrodes (IDE) deposited on either polymer or an inorganic material such Barium Strontium Titanate (BST). In the case of polymer-based device, we study the capacitance change and calibrate it for desired sensing application. In the inorganic case, we make use of the change in dielectric properties of BST as a function of DC bias. IDE will act like a RF filter and oscillator just like the comb-type RF MEMS devices. These polymeric based devices can be integrated with organic thin film transistors. RF switches, tuners and filters are some of the initial applications of RF MEMS although many others are still under development. In this paper we present the design and development of few devices such as phase shifters, switches and IDT capacitors. It is observed that, dielectric constant of BST thin film changes by more than 50% with an applied bias voltage of 25 V de, which could therefore be easily implemented in RF switch.