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Radio frequency (RF) micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) capacitive switches show great promise for use in wireless communication devices such as mobile phones, but for the successful application of these switches their reliability needs to be demonstrated. One of the main factors that limits the reliability is charge injection in the dielectric layer (SiN) which can cause irreversible stiction of the moving part of the switch. We present a way to characterize charge injection. By stressing the dielectric with electric fields on the order of 1 MV/cm, we inject charge in the dielectric and measure the effects it has on the CV curve. Instead of conventionally measuring the change of the pull-in voltage, the presented center shift method measures the change of the voltage at which the capacitance is minimal. This way, the measurement method does not influence the charge injected by the stress voltage. Another advantage is that the measurement of the amount of injected charge is not influenced by changes in the width of the CV curve. These two advantages make it possible to test RF-MEMS capacitive switches in a more accurate way.

RF MEMS capacitive switches show great promise for use in wireless communication devices such as mobile phones, but the successful application of these switches is hindered by reliability concerns: charge injection in the dielectric layer (SiN) can cause irreversible stiction of the moving part of the switch. We present a new way to characterize charge injection. By stressing the dielectric with electric fields on the order of 1 MV/cm, we inject charge in the dielectric, and use a new method to measure the effects it has on the C-V curve. Instead of measuring the change in the pull-in voltage, this method measures the change in the voltage at which the capacitance is minimal. This way, no extra charge is injected during the measurement of the amount of injected charge, which reduces the effect it has on the tested switches, so that the effect of the intentionally induced stress voltage is not obscured by the measurement method.