RF-MEMS and its applications to microwave systems, antennas and wireless communications

Abstract

MEMS-based products combine both mechanical and electronic devices on a monolithic microchip to produce superior performance over solid-state components, especially for wireless applications. RF-MEMS components are mainly used as inductors, tunable capacitors, switches, in VCOs, and resonators. Popular MEMS switches for wireless applications include transmit/receive duplexers, band-mode selection, time delay for phased-array antennas, and reconfigurable antennas. This paper talks about the use of MEMS switches in conjunction of fractal antennas to achieve multi-frequency, reconfigurable antennas that can be used for a variety of communication applications and how micromachining can be used to fabricated new 3-D MEMS antenna structures for very high frequency applications.