Abstract
In this paper, a seesaw torsional relay monolithically integrated in a standard 0.35 μm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology is presented. The seesaw relay is fabricated using the Back-End-Of-Line (BEOL) layers available, specifically using the tungsten VIA3 layer of a 0.35 μm CMOS technology. Three different contact materials are studied to discriminate which is the most adequate as a mechanical relay. The robustness of the relay is proved, and its main characteristics as a relay for the three different contact interfaces are provided. The seesaw relay is capable of a double hysteretic switching cycle, providing compactness for mechanical logic processing. The low contact resistance achieved with the TiN/W mechanical contact with high cycling life time is competitive in comparison with the state-of-the art.
Highlights
It is expected that new micro- and nanoelectromechanical (M/NEM) relays can play an important role as a new device for adding functionality and decreasing the power consumption for the more demanding area of consumable devices (IoT, wearables) [1]
Papers using the same complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-MEMS tungsten-based relay as presented in this paper, but with different configurations and designs, suffers from these non-ideal characteristics: Reference [13] presents a torsional relay with a high pull-in voltage and below one hundred operation cycling; References [14,15] are based on lateral relays exhibiting in both cases a high contact resistance (1 MΩ and 750 MΩ in References [14,15], respectively)
Even higher contact resistances and low cycling operation are encountered in other CMOS-MEMS approaches: In Reference [16], contact resistance is greater than 500 MΩ and 30 operation cycles; in Reference [17], the contact resistance is in the GΩ range and only 10 operation cycles
Summary
It is expected that new micro- and nanoelectromechanical (M/NEM) relays can play an important role as a new device for adding functionality and decreasing the power consumption for the more demanding area of consumable devices (IoT, wearables) [1]. The high number of metal layers used in the advanced CMOS technology nodes make very attractive the exploitation of a CMOS-MEMS platform for using metal layers, as an electrical connection path, and to provide some active processing using these layers as embedded MEMS devices [6,7] Despite this interest in obtaining functional mechanical switching devices embedded in CMOS, most of the presented examples from the literature are only CMOS-compatible [8,9,10,11,12], with few of them being really embedded in CMOS [13,14,15,16,17]. As a consequence of these reported characteristics, more research is necessary in order to improve the performance of these CMOS-MEMS relays
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