Acceleration of Dielectric Charging in RF MEMS Capacitive Switches (Preprint)

Abstract

To design and validate accelerated life tests of RF MEMS capacitive switches, acceleration factors of charging effects in switch dielectric were quantitatively characterized. From the measured charging and discharging transient currents at different temperatures and control voltages, densities and time constants of dielectric traps were extracted. A charging model was constructed to predict the amount of charge injected into the dielectric and the corresponding shift in actuation voltage under different acceleration factors such as temperature, peak voltage, duty factor, and frequency of the control waveform. Agreement was obtained between the model prediction and experimental data. It was found that temperature, peak voltage, and duty factor were critical acceleration factors for dielectric-charging effects whereas frequency had little effect on charging.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA456037

Entities

People

  • Charles L. Goldsmith
  • David I. Forehand
  • James C. M. Hwang
  • Xiaobin Yuan

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Charge Density
  • Detectors
  • Dielectrics
  • Experimental Data
  • Frequency
  • Government Procurement
  • Governments
  • Life Tests
  • Microelectromechanical Systems
  • Military Research
  • Reliability
  • Square Waves
  • Steady State
  • Waveforms
  • Waves

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Plasma Physics.