MEMS Transmission Line Phase Shifter Research Articles

A New Structure for 6 Bit Distributed MEMS Transmission Line Phase Shifter in Ku Band

In this paper a new design for 6 bit DMTL phase shifter with only 32 MEMS switches is proposed. The reduction in number of switches in ordinary 6 bit phase shifter from 63 to 32 is due to combination of one 5.625 degree for least significant bit and 11.25 degree for the rest of the switches. Decreasing the number of the switches reduces the die-size as well as loss of the CPW line. Analytical study and simulation with HFSS and COMSOL software is carried out for the proposed structure. Maximum return loss of phase shifter is -10.5 dB and mean RMS phase error is 1.4o . Although two different structural switches are used but the pull in voltages are identical. The total structure size is 1.5*18.5 mm2 , and surface micromachining process is proposed for the phase shifter.