Differential RF MEMS interwoven capacitor immune to residual stress warping

A RF MEMS capacitor with an interwoven structure is designed, fabricated in the PolyMUMPS process and tested in an effort to address fabrication challenges usually faced in MEMS processes. The interwoven structure was found to offer several advantages over the typical MEMS parallel-plate design including eliminating the warping caused by residual stress, eliminating the need for etching holes, suppressing stiction, reducing parasitics and providing differential capability. The quality factor of the proposed capacitor was higher than five throughout a 2–10 GHz range and the resonant frequency was in excess of 20 GHz.