Micromachines (Sep 2024)

The Seven-State RF MEMS Miniaturized Broadband Reconfigurable Step Attenuator

  • Yuheng Si,
  • Siming Chen,
  • Peifang Fu,
  • Jian Yu,
  • Binyi Ma,
  • Qiannan Wu,
  • Mengwei Li

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/mi15101182
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 10
p. 1182

Abstract

Read online

This paper presents a three-channel reconfigurable step attenuator based on radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switches, in response to the current issues of high insertion loss and low attenuation accuracy of attenuators. The coplanar waveguide (CPW), cross-shaped power dividers, RF MEMS switches, and π-type attenuation resistor networks are designed as a basic unit of the attenuator. The attenuator implemented attenuation of 0~30 dB at 5 dB intervals in the frequency range of 1~25 GHz through two basic units. The results show that the insertion loss is less than 1.41 dB, the attenuation accuracy is better than 2.48 dB, and the geometric size is 2.4 mm × 4.0 mm × 0.7 mm. The attenuator can be applied to numerous fields such as radar, satellites, aerospace, electronic communication, and so on.

Keywords