A lateral, self-cleaning, direct contact MEMS switch
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Yong Shi; Sang-Gook Kim
- Source
- 18th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2005. MEMS 2005. Micro electro mechanical systems Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 2005. MEMS 2005. 18th IEEE International Conference on. :195-198 2005
- Subject
- Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Micromechanical devices
Switches
Microswitches
Surface resistance
Contact resistance
Cleaning
Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems
Power system reliability
Radio frequency
Distributed parameter circuits
- Language
- ISSN
- 1084-6999
A direct contact MEMS switch has been developed with compliant lateral metal contacts to address the needs of low contact resistance and long life cycles. The device is unique in self-alignment of the contact surfaces, self-cleaning of particles generated during operations and mechanical anchoring method of the contact metal in the Su-8 switch structures. It has been demonstrated experimentally that a low contact resistance of about 0.1 /spl Omega/ is maintained for up to 10 billions of cycles of operation. The switch design is compatible with our thin film PZT actuating technology and can be readily integrated into a fully functional MEMS switch.