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Design and fabrication of a 4-bit RF MEMS attenuator with a high attenuation accuracy

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Abstract

This paper presents a 4-bit micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) digital attenuator with improved attenuation accuracy by surface micromachining. The attenuator is consisted of monoblack type radio frequency MEMS switches and TaN film resistors fabricated on a glass substrate to control the reconfigurable power within DC ~ 18 GHz. The simulation results revealed that the device had favorable terminal matches ranging from 0 to 70 dB with a 10 dB step. The attenuation accuracy was better than 1.2 dB, the insertion loss was less than 1.32 dB, and the voltage standing wave rations were better than 1.56 under these eight attenuation steps. Additionally, the package size of this device was designed as 8.28 mm × 2.37 mm × 0.85 mm, such that it could be applied to miniaturized microwave instruments.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Information System Pre-research Project (No. 31513060101). We thank the Key Laboratory of Instrumentation Science & Dynamic Measurement for their support.

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Author notes

  1. Mengwei Li and Yifei Zhang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nantong Institute of Intelligent Opto-Mechatronics of North University of China, Nantong, China

    Mengwei Li & Qiannan Wu

  2. School of Microelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Yifei Zhang

  3. Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, North University of China, Taiyuan, China

    Mengwei Li & Qiannan Wu

  4. School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China

    Yiliang Zhao

  5. Shanxi Institute of Metrology, Taiyuan, China

    Pengfei Xue

  6. School of Science, North University of China, Taiyuan, China

    Qiannan Wu

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  1. Mengwei Li
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  2. Yifei Zhang
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  3. Yiliang Zhao
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  4. Pengfei Xue
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Correspondence to Mengwei Li or Yifei Zhang.

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Li, M., Zhang, Y., Zhao, Y. et al. Design and fabrication of a 4-bit RF MEMS attenuator with a high attenuation accuracy. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 102, 617–624 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-020-01608-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-020-01608-x

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