Electrostatic discharge failure analysis of capacitive RF MEMS switches

This paper reports on the investigation of failure mechanisms of aluminum nitride (AlN)-based capacitive RF MEMS switches. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) experiments have been carried out by means of a transmission line pulsing (TLP) technique and a first experiment under human body model (HBM) stresses has been done. It has been observed that TLP stresses gives rise to electric arcs and the degradations have been analyzed and are reported in this paper. Microwave measurements have shown that TLP stresses impact the quality of the capacitive contact. HBM robustness in upstate configuration and its different failure modes have been also reported.