Excerpt from the Proceedings of the COMSOL Multiphysics User's Conference 2005 Stockholm

Anders Eriksson

Mechanical Model of Electrostatically Actuated Shunt Switch

Abstract A component used in RF-MEMS systems is the electrostatically actuated shunt switch. We show how this type of switch can be simulated using a simple mechanical femlab model where electrostatic forces are modelled by a pressure load. The static as well as dynamic properties of the switch are analysed, e.g. static pull in and pull out voltages and displacements, dynamic switch up and down times and natural modes. We show how a virtual displacement constraint can be used to obtain stable static solutions for the switching characteristics of this type of device that is intrinsically unstable for actuation voltages close to the pull-in voltage. In the dynamic simulations we initially exclude damping. We then set up a more realistic multiphysics model that includes squeezed-film damping effects. The shunt switch is a bench-mark structure that has been built and studied by several groups within AMICOM which is a European centre of excellence in the field of RF-MEMS. The femlab results obtained for the shunt switch show agreement with results obtained by Ansys simulations of the same device. Keywords RF-MEMS - Shunt switch Electrostatic actuation Squeezed film damping -

1 Introduction
In the active research area of RF-MEMS progress is made in the development of new radio frequency devices built by micro electromechanical systems techniques. This type of technology has the potential of replacing many devices in standard RF technology to gain performance enhancements (ref 1). AMICOM is a European network of excellence that is sponsored by EU and that strives to achieve a leading role in the international research in this area (ref 2). AMICOM is formed by collaboration between nearly 30 universities of which Uppsala Universitet is one. One fraction of this network focuses on simulations, and has set up a list of benchmark examples that are used to test the capabilities of various softwares. One of these benchmark examples is investigated in this paper and it focuses on an electrostatically actuated shunt switch. (ref 3) The switch operates on a coplanar wave guide (CPW), and the operating principle of the switch is based on variations in the transmission and reflection properties of the RF-signal due to a local variation of the wave guide capacitance. The variation is controlled by applying a DC voltage that electrostatically modifies the air gap between the signal conductor of the wave guide and a crossing gold bridge that is connected to the ground conductors. The signal conductor is covered by a dielectric layer to avoid direct electric contact between the conductors. A cross section of the switch is illustrated in Figure 1. When a DC voltage of typically 30-60V is applied, the bridge is forced into contact with the dielectric layer, consequently reducing the air gap from ca 0.5 m air to 0.25 m dielectric. In this presentation we show how the static and dynamic properties of this switch are analysed by a simple 2D femlab model. The model is also extended to a 3D shell model to analyse natural modes and squeeze film damping phenomena. The problem is obviously of multiphysics character including mechanic, electrostatic, gas flow, and contact phenomena. It turns out that it is sufficient to use an analytical model for the electrostatic field. Initially we also avoid complications due to contact problems by

A. B. Eriksson Uppsala Universitet Tel: +46 18 471 68 63 Fax: +46 18 471 35 72 E-mail: anders.eriksson@angstrom.uu.se

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the COMSOL Multiphysics User's Conference 2005 Stockholm

focusing on the situation when there is no contact or only single-point contact. At the end of this paper we extend the model by introducing a preliminary version of a contact model.

mechanical model. The integrand in Equation (1) is also described by a femlab expression that is numerically integrated to obtain the capacitance. The squeezed film damping is driven by the vertical motion of the bridge and is caused by the viscosity and inertia of the gas that is squeezed in or out of the air gap. It is described by the Reynolds equation (ref 4)

h 3 ( h) p = 12 . t eff

(3)

where p is the gas pressure, h the air gap, the gas density, and eff the effective viscosity. The effective viscosity takes into account the small scale of the air gap and is approximated by (ref 4) Figure 1. The cross-section of the shunt switch is shown. The of the gold bridge in the direction normal to the paper is 50 m (ref 3) . This paper starts by a short discussion of the theories for electrostatic forces and squeezed film damping. We then proceed by a static 2D analysis to calculate the static pull in and pull out voltages and displacements. A modal analysis follows to check the validity of the assumptions made in the model and to prepare for the dynamic analysis. A dynamic analysis is then made assuming no damping to be present. From this analysis we determine the pull in and pull out times. The dynamic analysis is finally refined by introducing squeezed film damping.

eff =

1.159 1 + 9.638( / h )

(4)

where is the mean free path of the gas In air at atmospheric pressure the mean free path is approximately =70 nm. At sufficiently slow transients the time derivative in the right-hand side of Equation (3) is dominated by the variation in h while the density variation plays an important role at high frequencies. This is investigated in ref 5 for a 1D parallel-plate system assuming small air-gap variations, and the following corner frequency is derived:

fc =

p0 h 2 24 eff w 2

(5)

2 Theory
The electrostatic fields are modelled locally by a one-dimensional capacitor model. The error introduced by this simplification is expected to be less than 5%. Given this assumption, the capacitance is given by the following integral over the overlap area between bridge and signal conductor

C=

0 dA
h( x ) + a / r

(1)

where p0 is the surrounding pressure, w is the width of the plate, and we assume the gas to be isothermal. Below this frequency Equation (3) can be simplified by eliminating the constant density. In the case of slow transients and bridges with large length to width ratio the squeezed flow is mainly directed orthogonal to the bridge. In this situation the pressure profile is parabolic and can be averaged such that the Reynolds equation is simplified to a form that can be used in a 2D analysis,

where r=8 and a=0.28 m are the dielectric constant and height of the dielectric layer, and h(x) is the air gap. The electrostatic forces on the bridge in the overlap region at an actuation voltage U are described by the pressure p given by

h3 h p ( x) = , 2 t w

(6)

p ( x) =

2(h( x) + a / r ) .
2

0U 2

(2)

where p (x) is the pressure averaged over the width of the bridge. An order of magnitude estimate of the dynamic effects of squeezed film damping can be made by combining Equation (6) with the methods of modal analysis and Rayleigh damping. The dynamic equation of the system with Rayleigh damping is described in modal theory by the equation

The above equation for p(x) is defined as a femlab expression and is used as a load in the solution of the

&& & Mu + Ku + Ku = F ,

(7)

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the COMSOL Multiphysics User's Conference 2005 Stockholm

where u is a vector representing the displacement of the structure, F represents oscillating external forces, M is the mass matrix and K is the stiffness matrix. Application of a projection operator to Equation (7) and using the relation between M, K and the natural frequency results in a description of Equation (6) in terms of Rayleigh beta damping. In this transformation of equations, the motion is assumed dominated by the first natural mode and deflections are assumed small. Some analysis results in

(2f 0 )2 h 3 bridge

w 2 eff

(8) Figure 2. The geometry of the 2D and 3D structural models of the gold bridge.

where , w and are the thickness, width and density of the bridge, and f0 is the first natural frequency of the system.

3 Setting up the model

Since the electrostatic forces are well represented by a one dimensional capacitor model if follows that a 2D structural model is sufficient for most mechanical analyses. The only exceptions are the modal analysis due to out of plane motion of some modes and the analysis of squeezed film damping since there is an out of plane variation in pressure. Symmetries are used to set up the 2D model for half a bridge while a quarter model is used for the 3D shell model. The electrostatic field is modelled by a pressure load according to Equation (2). The squeezed film damping is modelled in 2D by the pressure defined in Equation (6). In the 3D shell model the damping is described by the weak formulation of Equation (3). The 2D and 3D models are illustrated in Figure 2. The parameters used in the mechanical model are listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Parameters of mechanical model. Parameter Value Youngs modulus 80 GPa Poisson ratio 0.42 Gold density 19280 kg/m3

4 Static analysis
The properties of the system that are solved for in a static analysis are the pull in displacement and pull in and pull out voltages. The pull in voltage is defined as the voltage at which the device switches from the up to down state. The pull in displacement is the displacement of the bridge when the pull in voltage is applied. We define the pull out voltage as the voltage at which the bridge looses mechanical contact with the bottom layer as the voltage is slowly decreased.. In addition to the displacements and voltages, also the capacitance in the on and off states are evaluated. The capacitance is easily evaluated using the function defined in Equation (1) once the displacements have been solved for. The most intriguing problem of the static analysis is that there exist two solutions for most applied voltage levels below the pull-in voltage and as a consequence it is difficult to find stable static solutions for most voltages. This problem occurs for models where the actuation voltage is used as a fixed parameter for which the displacements are solved. The trick to obtain stable solutions is to fix the displacement at the centre of the bridge and solve for the voltage that generates this displacement. This is done by applying a constraint for the displacement and use a root finding algorithm to solve for the voltage at which the constraint induces no response force. The relation between voltage and displacement is solved for and the result is plotted in Figure3. From this figure we identify the static pull in voltage and

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the COMSOL Multiphysics User's Conference 2005 Stockholm

displacement as 2.1 V and 0.3 m, while the pull out voltage is 0.47 V. These results compare very well to the ANSYS 3D results from ref 8 that give 2.17 V static pull in voltage and 0.31 um pull in displacement

Figure 3. The relation between applied voltage and displacement of the centre point of the bridge is plotted. The disadvantage with our technique for finding stable solutions is that an additional root finding algorithm has to be added outside femlab. This means that the femlab analysis has to be saved as an m-file, which is then edited to add the root finding algorithm in matlab. A suggested technique that does not require any additional solvers would be the following: Introduce a boundary variable U that is solved for in a weak formulation. The equation xU = 0 is solved for with the point constraint that vertical tension at the centre equals 0. This should result in the same plot as in Figure 3.

Figure 4. The first three natural modes of the bridge as obtained from the 2D model and a full shell model. To investigate the importance of damping we now evaluate Equation (8) using the lowest natural frequency and obtain =0.2 ms. The damping is thus clearly significant since is larger than the period of the fundamental mode. To check the validity of assuming constant density of the gas we also use Equation (5) for the corner frequency, resulting in fc=28 kHz. This is close to the first resonant frequency and shows that density variations should be allowed in Equation (3) to obtain correct resonant modes for the system.

5 Modal analysis
As a prerequisite to the transient analysis we analyse the natural modes in eigenfrequency analyses of the 2D and 3D models. The solution is very straightforward and the resulting natural frequencies are summarised in Table 2 where a comparison is also made to ANSYS results from ref 8. The first three natural modes are illustrated in Figure 4. Table 2. The natural frequencies of the first natural modes based on three types of models are listed. 2D model Shell model ANSYS 3D (ref 8) 17.7 kHz 18.0 kHz 18.4 48.7 kHz 49.6 kHz 50.7 84.9 kHz 95.4 kHz 97.3 kHz

6 Transient analysis
In a transient analysis we solve for the pull in and pull out times. A 2D model can be used if the squeezed film effects are disregarded. This model also gives an idea of the effects of squeezed film damping by using the pressure defined in Equation (6). In these simple models we focus on the dynamics when there is no contact or single point contact. We choose to study the dynamics at 35 V pull in voltage which is typical for this type of device.

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the COMSOL Multiphysics User's Conference 2005 Stockholm

The air gap at the centre of the bridge as function of time for switch on is illustrated in Figure 5. This figure contains both the cases when damping is included and excluded. When the problem is solved for in the case of zero damping an appropriate value must be set for to obtain stability in the solution and to avoid influencing the results. In this situation we select =1 s which is a very short time compared to the first natural frequency. From Figure 5 the pull in time at 35V actuation voltage is estimated to 1.5 s under vacuum conditions. In the case with squeezed film damping the actuation time seems to be of the order 10 s. Note that there are divergent terms in the equations as the air gap approaches zero, which causes very slow convergence of the solution as time increases above 6 s.
1 0.8 h/h0 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0 2 4 t (us) 6 8

7. Squeezed film damping and contact analysis

To improve the transient analysis of the previous section we now analyse a coupled model based on 3D shells for the mechanics, a weak for formulation of the squeezed film damping and a Hertzian contact model (ref. 6). The addition of the contact analysis is motivated since as large a fraction of the bridge as possible should have contact with the bottom dielectricum when the bridge is pulled down under normal operation of the device. In the weak form of the model for the squeezed film pressure we represent Equation (3) assuming constant density by the function

h3 & eff Ptest P + 12hPtest dA = 0 .

(9)

Figure 5. Air gap as function of time at pull in obtained from the 2D model and 35 V actuation voltage. The full line represents the bridge in standard atmosphere and the dashed curve represents the bridge in vacuum. To solve for the pull out the static problem is first solved for zero air gap. This solution is then used as initial condition in the transient analysis. The result for a switch in vacuum is illustrated in Figure 6. We use the first zero crossing of the displacement as a measure of the pull up time. The pull up time is thus estimated to 15 s (in agreement with first eigenmode solved for in section 5)

This formulation is more general than the one in ref 8 since it allows spatial variations in the air gap and the effective viscosity. To obtain a fully correct formulation, time variations in the density should also be included , but that is over the scope of this paper. The evaluation of the corner frequency in section 5 indicates that density variations are required for transients faster than approximately 50 s. Nevertheless, we expect to gain some insight into the dynamics of the switch even if these effects are excluded. The model for the Hertzian contact is set up using a contact pressure defined by (ref 6)

p c = t exp(e / t gap )

(10)

Figure 6. Air gap as function of time at pull up is shown for vacuum conditions.

where we use t=5 MPa and e=20t/a, (a is the thickness of the dielectric layer). Linear extrapolation is used for negative air gaps. To maintain numerical stability at contact we also set an upper limit of 600 for the Knudsen number /h in Equation (4). The dynamics of the pull down is illustrated in Figure 7 where the full line shows the capacitance of the bridge as function of time for 35 V actuation voltage. The capacitance has been evaluated by numerical integration according to Equation (1). When the simulation is run it turns out that the first contact occurs at the outer corners of the contact area. This is fully consistent with the fact that the squeezed film pressure is zero at the boundaries and higher at the centre of the bridge. In Figure 7 we identify the point of first contact as the knee at approximately 10 s. The bridge reaches full contact at approximately twice that time. In the analysis it turns out that the capacitance at contact is very sensitive to the contact model since even very thin air layers have a big influence due to the very thin dielectric layer. We have used a contact model that gives an air gap of approximately one tenth of the thickness of the

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the COMSOL Multiphysics User's Conference 2005 Stockholm

dielectric layer, and since the dielectric constant is 8 the obtained capacitance at pull down is approximately a factor two too low. This should not affect the time scale in the analysis. Figure 7 is also shows the dynamics of the pull in as obtained from the 2D model (dashed line). We note that the two models agree at small deflections, but as the air gap closes the 3D effects get more pronounced.
2.0

ms. This is consistent with the estimated parameter =0.2 ms.

4. Discussion
In this paper we have shown how femlab can be used to perform the mechanical analysis of an electrostatically actuated shunt switch. In the framework of AMICOM the system has also been simulated using ANSYS by a group at Technion in Israel., and the results for static pull in parameters and the natural modes agree with their results. (ref 8). We have illustrated a technique to obtain static solutions of a system showing switching characteristics and physically unstable properties. We have shown that squeezed film damping is very important in this system if it is operated in standard atmosphere. The squeezed film damping has been modelled in a 3D multiphysics model that includes structural, electrostatic, as well as contact phenomena. The squeezed film damping model is based on ref 7 and has been modified to allow for large variations in the air gap. We have also pointed out that a correct model for squeezed film damping should include terms for the time derivative of pressure. This extension has not yet been done.

1.5 C (pF)

1.0

0.5

0.0 0 5 10 t (us) 15 20 25

Figure 7. Capacitance is plotted as function of time at pull in with 35 V actuation voltage. The pull out is analysed by setting the voltage U to zero when starting from a pulled down state. The solution for this case is illustrated in Figure 8. The initial very rapid decrease in capacitance could be an artefact of the contact model. From this figure we estimate the pull out time to approximately 2 ms. It is natural that the pull out time is much longer than the pull in time since there is no electrostatic force driving the pull out.

References

1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

6. 7. 8. Figure 8. Capacitance as function of time at pull up starting from the completely pulled down state at U=35V. The validity of the simple 2D model in which the squeezed film damping was represented by a beta damping (section 3) is verified by checking the ratio between deflection and velocity for the shell model in & the case of very small deformations. The ratio u / u is approximately 0.25 ms as time gets bigger than 2.5

J. J. Yao, RF MEMS from a device perspective, J. Micromech. Microeng. 10, R9-R38 (2000). www.amicom.info This type of switches have been produced and characterized for AMICOM by P. Pons et. al, LAAS-CNRS. T. Veijola, Equivalent Circuit Models for Micromechanical Inertial Sensors, Circuit Theory Laboratory report Series CT-39, Helsinki University of Technology (1999) T. Veijola, Compact models for squeezedfolm dampers with intertial and rearefied gas effects, J. Micromech. Micoreng. 14, 11091118 (2004). Femlab 3 structural mechanics model library - Hertzian contact Femlab 3 model library squeezed film fas damping. V. Leus and D. Elata, Technion, AMICOM report D220-1 (2005)