Low-voltage lateral-contact microrelays for RF applications

This paper reports the design and fabrication of a low-voltage lateral-contact microrelay for RF applications. The silicon surface micromachined relay utilizes electrothermal actuators and low-stress silicon nitride as a structural connection as well as electrical and thermal isolation. The sidewall contact is sputtered gold. The driving voltage is measured to be as low as 8V. RF testing shows that the microrelay has an off-state isolation of 20 dB at 12 GHz. The simplicity of this four-mask fabrication process enables the possible integration with other RF MEMS components.