POWER HANDLING RF-MEMS SWITCHES OPTIMIZATION TROUGH A MULTIPHYSIC NUMERICAL ENVIRONMENT
F. COCCETTI, B. DUCAROUGE, D. DUBUC, K. GRENIER, R. PLANA

Abstract. The analysis and the power handling optimization of RF-MEMS switches based on a multiphysic numerical environment is here presented. The analysis allows the coupling of electro-thermo-mechanical fields by enabling exhaustive and efficient investigation of RF induced phenomena as thermal rise and the consequent thermo-mechanical displacement. The analysis tool is based on commercial FEM software (HFSS and e-physics both from Ansoft Inc.). The results show that the RF electrothermal co-design approach is a very helpful strategy in order to obtain RF-MEMS devices able to undertake high RF power (above 5 W). This study provides a consistent investigation tool for complex MEMS and RFIC based integrated RF front-end.