High frequency parasitic effects for on-wafer packaging of RF MEMS switches

Abstract

A silicon micromachined on-wafer DC to 40 GHz packaging scheme for RF MEMS switches is presented. The designed on-wafer package has an insertion loss which is less than 0.3 dB up to 40 GHz (including a 2.7 mm long through line) and a return loss below -18 dB up to 40 GHz. The inclusion of the bonding ring and the dc bias lines creates parasitic resonances. This paper presents a detailed study of the package parasitics and provides solutions that can effectively eliminate them for frequencies up to 40 GHz.