• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.166-176
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• 2007

Radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have been pursued for more than a decade as a solution of high-performance on-chip fixed, tunable and reconfigurable circuits. This paper reviews our research work on RF MEMS switches and switching circuits in the past five years. The research work first concentrates on the development of lateral DC-contact switches and capacitive shunt switches. Low insertion loss, high isolation and wide frequency band have been achieved for the two types of switches; then the switches have been integrated with transmission lines to achieve different switching circuits, such as single-pole-multi-throw (SPMT) switching circuits, tunable band-pass filter, tunable band-stop filter and reconfigurable filter circuits. Substrate transfer process and surface planarization process are used to fabricate the above mentioned devices and circuits. The advantages of these two fabrication processes provide great flexibility in developing different types of RF MEMS switches and circuits. The ultimate target is to produce more powerful and sophisticated wireless appliances operating in handsets, base stations, and satellites with low power consumption and cost.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.929-932
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• 2005

We report a pull-up type RF MEMS switch using double electrode without elastic deformation of the cantilever involved in the actuation. At a voltage of 4.5 V, reliable actuations are achieved such that the movable lower contact pad is pulled up by the electrostatic force to make contact with the upper pad. At a frequency of 50 GHz, an insertion loss of 0.7 dB and an isolation of 50.7 dB are obtained from the switch. The measured transient times for switch-on and switch-off are 120 and 80 us, respectively.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.183-188
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• 2016

This paper presents the design and characterization of wide band ohmic microswitch with an actuation voltage as low as 20~25 V, and a restoring force of 14.1 μN. The design of the proposed switch is primarily composed of an electrostatic actuator, bridge membrane, cantilever (beam) and coplanar waveguide, suspended over the substrate. The analysis shows an insertion loss of −0.002 dB at 1GHz and remains as low as −0.35 dB, even at 100 GHz. The isolation loss of the switch is sustained at −21.09 dB at 100GHz, with a peak value of −99.58 dB at 1 GHz and up-state capacitance of 4 fF. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a series contact switch, which works over a wide bandwidth (DC-100 GHz) and with such a high and sustained isolation, even at high frequencies and with an excellent figure of merit (f_c=1/2.pi.Ron.Cu= 39.7 THz).

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2008.07a
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• pp.1464-1465
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• 2008

In this paper, we compared the mechanical characteristics between LTCC-based RF MEMS packaging structures fabricated using two different types of bonding materials; BCB and gold-tin. The BCB-based packages showed an average shear strength of 32.1 MPa and helium leak rate of $1.76{\times}10^{-8}atm{\cdot}cc/sec$ for a cavity volume of $0.45\times10^{-3}cc$, while the packages bonded by gold-tin layer (80 wt.% gold, 20 wt.% tin) showed an average shear strength of 42.70 MPa and helium leak rate $1.38{\times}10^{-8}atm{\cdot}cc/sec$ for a cavity volume of $1.21{\times}10^{-3}cc$.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.405-411
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• 2020

In this paper, we designed the COS MEMS system for sensing the falling detection and explosive noise of fuse link in COS (Cut Out Switch) installing on the power distribution. This system analyzed the failure characteristics and an instantaneous breakdown of power distribution. Therefore, our system strengths the industrial competence and guaranties the stable power supply. In this paper, we applied BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) technology which is suitable protocol for low data rate, low power consumption and low-cost sensor applications. We experimented with LSM6DSOX which is system-in-module featuring 3 axis digital accelerometer and gyroscope boosting in high-performance mode and enabling always-on low-power features for an optimal motion for the COS fuse holder. Also, we used the MP34DT05-A for gathering an ultra-compact, low power, omnidirectional, digital MEMS microphone built with a capacitive sensing element and an IC interface. The proposed COS MEMS system is developed based on nRF52 SoC (System on Chip), and contained a 3-axis digital accelerometer, a digital microphone, and a SD card. In this paper of experiment steps, we analyzed the performance of COS MEMS system with gathering the accelerometer raw data and the PDM (Pulse Data Modulation) data of MEMS microphone for broadcasting the failure of COS status.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.172-176
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• 2013

Microelectromechanical system switches are becoming more and more popular in the electronics industry; there is a need for careful selection of the materials in the design and fabrication of switches for reliability and performance issues. The membrane used for actuation to change the state of an RF switch is made mostly using gold or aluminum. Various designs of membranes have been proposed. Due to the flexure-type structures, the design complexity increases, which makes stress analysis mandatory to validate the reliability and performance of a switch. In this paper, the effective stress and actuation voltage required for different types of fixed-fixed membranes is analyzed using finite element modeling. Effective measures are presented to reduce the stress and voltage.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1507_1508
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• 2009

This study proposes a composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL) that permits switching between the right-handed (RH) and left-handed (LH) modes using single crystalline silicon (SCS) RF MEMS switches. It is possible to change modes from the RH to LH mode, or vice versa, by controlling the admittance of capacitors and the impedance of inductors using switch operations. The proposed switchable CRLH-TL consists of SCS RF MEMS switches, metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors and shunt inductors. At 8 GHz, the fabricated device shows a phase response of $87^{\circ}$ with an insertion loss of 2.7 dB in the LH mode, and a phase response of $-77^{\circ}$ with an insertion loss of 0.56 dB in the RH mode.

• 한국정보통신설비학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.11-14
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• 2004

In this paper, a novel tunable bandpass filter using tunable series inductors and MEMS switches for wireless LAN applications was proposed. The proposed tunable filter was fabricated using a micromachining technology and performances of the fabricated filter were estimated. The filter consists of spiral inductors, MIM capacitors and direct-contact type MEMS switches, and its frequency tunability is achieved by changing the inductance that is induced by ON/OFF actuations of the MEMS switches. The actuation voltage of the MEMS switches was 58 V, and the measured center frequencies were 2.55 GHz and 5.1 GHz, respectively. The passband insertion loss and 3-dB bandwidth were 4.2 dB and 22.5 % at 2.55 GHz, and 5.2 dB and 23.5 % at 5.1 GHz, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2009

This paper presents a step up four channel DC-DC converter using charge pump voltage doubler structure. Our goal is to design and implement DC-DC converter for capacitive SP4T RF MEMS switch in front end module in wireless transceiver system. Charge pump structure is small and consume low power 3.3V input voltage is boosted by DC-DC Converter to $11.3{\pm}0.1V$, $12.4{\pm}0.1V$, $14.1{\pm}0.2V$ output voltage With 10MHz switching frequency. By using voltage level shifter structure, output of DC-DC converter is selected by 3.3V four channel selection signals and transferred to capacitive MEMS devices. External passive devices are not used for driving DC-DC converter. The total chip area is $2.8{\times}2.1mm^2$ including pads and the power consumption is 7.52mW, 7.82mW, 8.61mW.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.381-391
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• 2010

In this paper, a novel frequency reconfigurable active array antenna(RAA) system, which can be reconfigurable for three reconfigurable frequency bands, is proposed by using commercial RF MEMS switches. The MEMS switch shows excellent insertion loss, linearity, as well as isolation. So, the system performance degradation of the reconfigurable system by using MEMS switches can be minimized. The proposed frequency reconfigurable active antenna system is consisted with the noble frequency reconfigurable front-end amplifiers(RFA) with the simple reconfigurable impedance matching circuits(RMC), reconfigurable antenna elements(RAE), as well as a reconfiguration control board(RCB) for MEMS switch control. The proposed RAA system can be reconfigurable for three frequency bands, 850 MHz, 1.9 GHz, and 3.4 GHz, with $2{\times}2$ array of the RAE having broadband printed dipole antenna topology. The validity of the proposed RFA as well as RAA is also presented with the experimental results of the fabricated systems.