Fully Integrated BiCMOS High-Voltage
Driver Circuits for On-Chip RF-MEMS
Switch Matrices
vorgelegt von
M.Sc.
Christian Wipf
von der Fakult¨at IV – Fakult¨at Elektrotechnik und Informatik
der Technischen Universit¨at Berlin
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Doktor der Ingenieurwissenschaften
- Dr.-Ing. -
genehmigte Dissertation
Promotionsausschuss:
Vorsitzender: Prof. Dr.-Ing. J¨urgen Bruns
Gutachter: Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Dietmar Kissinger
Gutachter: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Friedel Gerfers
Gutachter: Prof. Dr. techn. Peter Weger
Tag der wissenschaftlichen Aussprache: 09. Mai 2019
Berlin 2019
Copyright
Christian Wipf: Fully Integrated BiCMOS High-Voltage Driver Circuits for On-Chip
RF-MEMS Switch Matrices.
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II
Acknowledgment
This work was done in the technology department of IHP - Leipniz-Institut f¨ur
innovative Mikroelektronik and I am thankful to everybody for giving me the time
to work on my dissertation. I am especially grateful to my group leader Dr. Roland
Sorge for his permanent support and for managing the production of the high-voltage
transistors. I want to thank my colleagues Alexander G¨oritz for managing the RF-
MEMS process and Alexander Scheit for organizing the high-energy implantation
required for the high-voltage LDMOS process. For the technical discussions I am
grateful to my colleagues Dr. Falk Kornd¨orfer, Dr. Mehmet Kaynak and Dr. Jens
Schmidt.
I am thankful to Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. Dietmar Kissinger for taking over the
responsibility as doctoral supervisor. My gratitude also goes to the reviewers and
members of the committee Prof. Dr.-Ing. Friedel Gerfers and Prof. Dr. techn.
Peter Weger. Furthermore, I would like to thank Prof. Dr.-Ing. J¨urgen Bruns for
his short-term takeover of the chairmanship of the committee.
Most of all I am truly grateful to my wife Selin for countless proof readings, criticizing
my trial presentations and providing me information about the RF-MEMS switch.
III
Abstract
In this work, building blocks required to control electrostatically actuated radio fre-
quency micro- electro- mechanical system (RF-MEMS) matrices were developed and
integrated into demonstrator circuits. The realized chips include the high-voltage
(HV) generation and switching units integrated together with the RF-MEMS swit-
ches. To the author’s knowledge, this work is the first to present monolithically inte-
grated radio frequency systems for operating frequencies above 20 GHz consisting of
RF-MEMS switches, on-chip HV generation circuits and an HV switch matrix. The
developed HV circuits could be further used as driver for electrostatically actuated
microfluidic pumps or valves.
Three on-chip HV generation concepts are analyzed: the latched charge pump (CP),
the Dickson CP and the Greinacher-Cockroft-Walton (GCW) topology. The desig-
ned Dickson CP provides two output voltages which are required to bias the HV
switch matrix. The clock tree of the Dickson CP is modified to synchronize the
two high-voltage outputs resulting in a minimized voltage ripple between these two
outputs. Output voltages greater than 40 V are generated.
A simple HV switching circuit based on a high-voltage npn silicon germanium (SiGe)
heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) is presented. As an alternative approach,
HV inverters consisting of lateral drift metal oxide semiconductor (NLDMOS and
PLDMOS) transistors, enabling operating voltages up to 50 V, are fabricated. Level
shifter (LS) circuits, required to drive the PLDMOS transistor, are analyzed regar-
ding steady state leakage current and circuit complexity. Transient simulations of
the designed LS core show a rise and fall time of 200 ps.
A K-band (27 – 40 GHz) RF-MEMS-based single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch
chip is realized applying two different HV concepts: (a) one CP per RF-MEMS and
discharging with NLDMOS transistors (b) single CP combined with HV switches.
Furthermore, a V-band (40 – 75 GHz) impedance tuning circuit comprising four
RF-MEMS switches, driven by four HV switches and powered by a single CP is
realized in this work. Measured scattering parameters of all demonstrator circuits
verify the successful actuation of the RF-MEMS switches driven by the integrated
HV generation and switching circuitry.
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