Investigation of actuation voltage for non-uniform serpentine flexure design of RF-MEMS switch

Abstract

This paper presents an attempt to reduce the actuation voltage of capacitive RF-MEMS switch by introducing the concept of non-uniform serpentine flexure suspensions. The spring constant of non-uniform serpentine flexure with different meander sections have been equated by analytical expression and verified with finite element method (FEM). FEM analysis indicate actuation voltage as low as 5 V with single meander section for the proposed non-uniform serpentine spring design, which is reasonably low as compared to uniform serpentine spring with same span beam length.