A novel DMTL capacitive switch with electrostatic actuation MAM capacitors

Abstract

A novel DMTL capacitive switch with electrostatic actuation metal–air–metal (MAM) capacitors is presented. The top board of MAM capacitors will be pulled down together with the switch bridge. It has higher isolation in down-state than DMTL capacitive switch and has lower insert loss and higher self-actuation RF power comparing with MEMS shunt capacitive switch. Two of the novel DMTL capacitive switches are designed for high isolation and high self-actuation RF power, respectively. The calculated result shows that both of the two novel switches have lower insert loss than the MEMS shunt capacitive switch. The self-actuation RF power of them are 4 and 2.4 times that of MEMS shunt capacitive switch, respectively, at the cost of −6.23 and −3.54 dB reduction in isolation (30 GHz).