PLATINUM: A THERMALLY STABLE MATERIAL FOR RF-MEMS
P. EKKELS, R. PUERS, H. A. C. TILMANS

Abstract. The reliability of RF-MEMS devices greatly benefits from hermetic packaging. Technologies that provide such packaging often require a relative high temperature step which can result in undesired changes in the device characteristics. These changes are caused by plastic behaviour of the bridge material. We present platinum as a thermally stable bridge material that can withstand packaging temperatures of at least 250°C without significant changes in switch characteristics. RF- measurements show that platinum can be implemented as bridge material without degradation of the RF performance. This opens the way for reproducible 0-level packaging of RF-MEMS devices at elevated temperatures.