Analysis of Linearity Deterioration in Multidevice RF MEMS Circuits

This paper presents for the first time an RF nonlinearity analysis of complex multidevice radio frequency microelectromechanical system (RF MEMS) circuits. The IIP3 of different RF MEMS multidevice tunable-circuit concepts including digital MEMS varactor banks, MEMS switched capacitor banks, distributed MEMS phase shifters, and MEMS tunable filters, is investigated. Closed-form analytical formulas for the IIP3 of MEMS multidevice circuit concepts are derived. A nonlinearity analysis, based on measured device parameters, is presented for exemplary circuits of the different concepts using a multidevice nonlinear electromechanical circuit model implemented in Agilent Advanced Design System. The results of the nonlinear electromechanical model are also compared with the calculated IIP3 using derived equations for the digital MEMS varactor bank and MEMS switched capacitor bank. The degradation of the overall circuit linearity with increasing number of device stages is also investigated, with the conclusion that the overall circuit IIP3 is reduced by half when doubling the number of stages, if proper design precautions are not taken. Design rules are presented so that the mechanical parameters and thus the IIP3 of the individual device stages can be optimized to achieve a higher overall IIP3 for the whole circuit. In addition, the nonlinearity of a novel MEMS tunable capacitor concept introduced by the authors, based on an MEMS actuator with discrete tuning steps, is discussed and the IIP3 is calculated using derived analytical formulas.