The role of fabrication techniques on the performance of widely tunable micromachined capacitors.

Abstract

Coventorware 2001.1® is used to identify key vertical dimensions for the low voltage operation of a two-gap widely tunable capacitor. Using identical masking stages, two varieties of tunable capacitor are presented. Nickel structures are demonstrated which have a tuning ratio of 5.1:1 from an initial capacitance of 0.7 pF. Gold devices exhibit a tuning ratio of 7.3:1 from an initial capacitance of 1.5 pF. These are the most widely tunable devices reported to date.