Novel high-Q MEMS curled-plate variable capacitors fabricated in 0.35-μm CMOS technology

Two microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) curled-plate variable capacitors, built in 0.35-mu m CMOS technology, are presented. The plates of the presented capacitors are intentionally curled upward to control the tuning performance. A newly developed maskless post-processing technique that is appropriate for MEMS/CMOS circuits is also presented. This technique consists of dry- and wet-etching steps and is developed to implement the proposed MEMS variable capacitors in CMOS technology. The capacitors are simulated mechanically by using the finite-element method in ANSYS, and the results are compared with the measured results. Two novel structures are presented. The first capacitor is a tri-state structure that exhibits a measured tuning range of 460% at 1 GHz with a flat capacitance response that is superior to that of conventional digital capacitors. The proposed capacitor is simulated in Ansoft's High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) and the capacitance extracted is compared with the measured capacitance over a frequency range of 1-5 GHz. The second capacitor is an analog continuous structure that demonstrates a measured continuous tuning range of 115% at 1 GHz with no pull-in. The measured quality factor is better than 300 at 1.5 GHz. The proposed curled-plate capacitors have a small area and can be realized to build a system-on-chip.