PRIME 2007 High quality medium power RF-MEMS based impedance tuner for smart microsystem integration

This paper presents the design and fabrication of an impedance tuner integrated thanks an RF-MEMS technology which is fully compatible with IC. The developed technology aims to fabricate RF-MEMS devices which are able to handle medium RF-power and also targets to be compatible with IC integration. Concerning the design, we have defined an appropriate methodology, specifically developed for RF-MEMS devices, which takes into account the large dispersion on the RF-MEMS contact quality and then down state capacitor value, and the values of generated impedances that we want as large as possible. The prospective of this work is to associate monolithically a power amplifier with this high Q (and then low losses) tuner in order to be able to tune the PAE or even the operating class.