Fabrication of RF MEMS Components on CMOS Circuits

A.G. MUKHERJEE*, M.E. KIZIROGLOU, S. VATTI, C. PAPAVASSILIOU, A.S. HOLMES, E.M. YEATMAN

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Imperial College London
Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
*E-mail: [email protected], Telephone: +44 20 7594 6216

Abstract. Recently deep submicron and SiGe (silicongermanium) bipolar CMOS technologies have enhanced the performance of Si-based radio frequency (RF) integrated circuits up to microwave frequencies. The integration of RF MEMS components, such as inductors and capacitors, could further improve the performance of key RF circuit blocks such as voltage controlled oscillators (VCO), low-noise amplifiers, filters, mixers, and power amplifiers. We have developed a process to integrate RF MEMS inductors with standard commercial CMOS dies. The purpose of this work is to present the integration of MEMS inductors with VCOs fabricated in a 0.18 μm standard CMOS technology.