Design of wide range MEMS tunable capacitor for RF applications

Abstract

The RF applications like voltage controlled oscillators, tunable filters, resonators etc., requires tunable capacitors in their designs. This paper presents the design of wide range MEMS tunable capacitors for RF applications. This design consists of an air suspended bottom plate and a fixed top plate. The top fixed plate and the suspended bottom plate form the tunable capacitor. The capacitance range of this tunable capacitor is from 69.172 to 138.344 nF. This range is wider compared with the conventional MEMS tunable capacitors of tuning ranges in pico Farads. The fabrication process is similar to that of the existing standard integrated circuit fabrication processes, which makes this design suitable for integrated RF applications.