A wideband electrostatic microwave switch fabricated by surface micromachining

Abstract

An electrostatic microwave switch has been implemented by applying surface micromachining processes. The substrate of the microwave switch is gallium arsenide (GaAs). The structure of the microwave switch contains a gold coplanar waveguide and a suspended aluminum membrane. The Al membrane is directly anchored to the sidewalls of the GaAs substrate. All processing temperatures are under 350°C. The microwave switch operation is controlled by electrostatic force. The experimental results of the microwave switch show a microwave isolation of ‐40 dB and an insertion loss of ‐0.5 dB in the range of 0.1 to 7 GHz. In addition to demonstrating the design and fabrication of the microwave switch, this work summarizes experimental results.