Integrated RM MEMS for Single Chip Radio

14 June 2001

New Image

The persistent drawbacks encountered in RF systems essentially reside in the bulk passive components. Integration solutions to obtain single-chip radio are therefore greatly investigated to improve compactness, performances and also cost. Three different and main integrated passive components are presented in this paper. An acoustic-wave micromachined resonator based filter is developed, which has potential for integration with RF front-end circuits, unlike surface acoustic-wave (SAW) or ceramic filters. Self-assembled RF inductors follow, which offer an attractive alternative to traditional ones with limited quality factor and resonant frequency. And finally, a micro-electro-mechanical (MEM) switch with high isolation level and low insertion loss is described.