Design and Realization of Loaded- and Reflect-Line X-band RF MEMS Phase Shifters

This paper presents some experimental results obtained for RF-MEMS phase shifters in X-band. Two different phase shifters are considered: a loaded-line and a reflect-line phase shifter. Both devices have been monolithically manufactured on a 525 μm -thick high resistivity silicon substrate. The realized samples exhibit a good agreement between simulated and measured results. Moreover, excellent performance in terms of phase shift have been obtained for the two phase shifters: measurements show a phase error of 0.5% in the case of the loaded-line type and of 4.7% in the case of the reflect-line type.