Investigation on Dielectric Material Selection for RF-MEMS Shunt Capacitive Switches Using Ashby, TOPSIS and VIKOR

Abstract

In this paper, different material selection techniques like Ashby, TOPSIS and VIKOR have been used to select the best dielectric material for RF-MEMS switches with low power consumption. These methods help in choosing the optimum material from the available pool of materials. The dielectric material should be selected such that RF-MEMS capacitive switch should have good RF response, high thermal conductivity, low thermal coefficient of expansion, and low leakage current. For this purpose, the concerned material indices should have high value of relative permittivity, high value of electrical resistivity, low value of thermal coefficient of expansion, and high value of thermal conductivity. The presence of trade-offs led to no conclusive selection in case of Ashby’s method. Following Ashby’s method, TOPSIS and VIKOR method were used to select the optimum material. The end results suggest that TiO2 is the most suitable materials for shunt capacitive RF-MEMS switches.