Design and consideration of wafer level micropackaging for distributed RF MEMS phase shifters

Abstract

A novel packaging structure which is performed using wafer level micropackaging on the thin silicon substrate as the distributed RF MEMS phase shifters wafer with vertical feedthrough is presented. The influences of proposed structure on RF performances of distributed RF MEMS phase shifters are investigated using microwave studio (CST). Simulation results show that the insertion loss (S21) and return loss (S11) of packaged MEMS phase shifters are -0.4-1.84 dB and under -10 dB at 1-50 GHz, respectively. Especially, the phase shifts have well linear relation at the range 1-48 GHz. At the same time, this indicated that the proposed pacakaging structure for the RF MEMS phase shifter can provide the maximum amount of linear phase shift with the minimum amount of insertion loss and return loss of less than -10 dB. © 2007 Springer-Verlag.