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A novel linearly tunable MEMS variable capacitor

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2002 J. Micromech. Microeng. 12 82

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INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING
J. Micromech. Microeng. 12 (2002) 82–86 PII: S0960-1317(02)27824-9

A novel linearly tunable MEMS variable

capacitor
Seonho Seok, Wonseo Choi and Kukjin Chun
School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
E-mail: ssh@mintlab.snu.ac.kr

Received 14 August 2001, in final form 9 October 2001

Published 11 December 2001
Online at stacks.iop.org/JMM/12/82

Abstract
The linearly tunable microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitor
with 608 comb fingers changing the overlap area is developed. Unlike the
conventional micromachined capacitor using the gap between the parallel
plates, the proposed capacitor adopts the overlap area as the tuning
parameter. In addition, the tuning range of the proposed capacitor has large
nominal capacitance C0, whereas the parallel plates have a range of C0/3
theoretically. The 6-µm-thick single-crystal silicon MEMS structure is
bonded to the pyrex glass substrate using the glass–silicon anodic bonding
technique and the chemical mechanical polish (CMP) to make the desired
capacitor. Single-crystal silicon was chosen as a capacitor structure material
because it has excellent mechanical properties greater than those of
polysilicon and aluminium as the structure material, and the pyrex glass is
used as a substrate instead of silicon to reduce the RF losses through the
substrate over the high-frequency range. The measured capacitor shows a
nominal capacitance of 1.4 pF, and 10% tuning range at 8V. The capacitor
model is also developed to explain the parasitic effect over the
high-frequency range and proved by using the Serenade software of the
Ansoft Corporation.

1. Introduction and the LC tank in the conventional negative-gm topology.

In communication systems, frequency selection is very
important to reduce interference and noise. Frequency
selection stages are composed of radio frequency (RF)
and intermediate frequency (IF) filtering stages. Vibrating
mechanical tank components, such as crystal and surface
acoustic wave (SAW) resonators, are widely used to realize the
required low phase noise and stability in their local oscillator.
For any communications application, the stability
of the oscillator signals used for frequency translation,
synchronization or sampling is of utmost importance.
Oscillator frequencies must be stable against variation in
temperature, aging and any phenomena such as noise
or microphotonics. The most important parameter that
determines the stability of the oscillator is the Q-factor of
the frequency-setting part such as the LC tank [1, 2].
The RF voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) need high-
quality tunable passive components because their phase noise
is proportional to 1/Q2 where Q is the overall Q-factor of the
LC tank. The RF VCOs are composed of the CMOS circuit
To tune the frequency in the channel bandwidth, the varactor
diode and the MOS capacitor have mainly been used. The
capacitance change in these devices results from the depletion
length and the channel capacitance. So, these devices limit the
operating frequency and the tuning range of the VCOs, and
the nonlinearity of the tuning devices degrade the phase noise
of the RF VCOs [3].
Recently, micromachined tunable capacitors have been
shown to have an adequate Q-factor when they are fabricated
in either an aluminium [4, 5] or a polysilicon [6] surface
micromachining technology. Also, a three-plate structure with
a wide tuning range was reported [7].
These devices are expected to offer an excellent linearity
since they do not respond to high frequencies outside their
mechanical resonance frequencies. However, their tuning
range is less than the theoretical limit because the gap between
the upper and lower plates is used as the capacitance. The
capacitance is proportional to 1/d where d is the distance
between the plates and A, where A is the area of the capacitor
plate. The change of capacitance by changing the overlap

0960-1317/02/010082+05$30.00 © 2002 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK 82

 A novel linearly tunable MEMS variable capacitor

area of the capacitor has the linear tuning characteristic 500um

theoretically and the tuning range is unlimited if the MEMS
structures allow. As mentioned above, a good linearity of the
tuning device improves the phase noise of the VCOs.
This paper reports that the single-crystal silicon MEMS
variable capacitor which can be linearly tunable have nominal
capacitance of 1.4 pF and 10% tuning range at 8 V. To
predict the frequency response of the VCOs that the proposed
capacitor will be applied to, the capacitor model is also
developed and tested by the Serenade software of the Ansoft
876um
Corporation.

2. Design

2.1. RF design

The design considerations for an RF tuning capacitor

include the frequency of operation, self-resonance frequency,
maximum-to-minimum capacitance ratio and quality factor.
The specifications depend on the intended application of the
variable capacitor. The motivating application of the research
is the tunable capacitor for RF voltage-controlled oscillator in
2 GHz-band RF transcievers. The self-resonance frequency
(SRF) of the capacitor structure should be at least twice the
desired operating frequency.
The capacitance value is approximately calculated by the
well-known parallel plate formula, C = εr ε0 A/d, where A is
the area of plates and d is the gap between the two parallel
plates. The basic idea of the proposed MEMS variable
capacitor is to use the overlap area change by electrostatic force
to achieve the linear tuning characteristic. A gap variation-
tuned capacitor with a parallel plate structure has a limited
tuning range due to the inherent nonlinear characteristics
generated from the relation between the capacitance and the
distance of the plates. It can be shown that the maximum
theoretical tuning range of such a capacitor is 1.5:1.
The area variation tuning capacitor has been designed
and fabricated on a glass substrate with bonded 6-µm-thick
MEMS silicon structure. The glass substrate was chosen to
reduce the RF loss of the silicon substrate and single crystal
silicon was chosen as the structure material for capacitor due
to its excellent mechanical properties.
The proposed MEMS variable capacitor consists of a
single suspended plate with 608 comb fingers to achieve 1.4
pF nominal capacitance as shown in figure 1. The tuning
electrode is made on the glass substrate. A dc voltage applied
to the tuning electrode causes an electrostatic force which
moves the suspended plate closer to the glass substrate and the
overlap area of the capacitor is reduced thus decreasing the
desired capacitance. Conventionally, the microstrip line and
coplanar waveguide (CPW) are used for the transmission line
of RF devices. We have applied the CPW which is composed
of the ground-signal-ground (GSG) lines in parallel to the
capacitor. This line is better than the microstrip line, in that
the ground line of the microstrip is placed the under the signal
line. It is very difficult to make the ground line contact the
signal line through the silicon wafer. So the CPW is frequently
used for the RF signal line because the line is easy to make on
the silicon wafer.
50um
(a)
6um
3um
glass
(b)
Figure 1. Top and cross-section views of the capacitor. (a) Top
view: The design capacitor is composed of 608 comb fingers to
achieve the desired capacitance of 1.4 pF. (b) Cross-section view:
To achieve the tuning range, the thickness of the structure is
designed to 6 µm and the gap 3 µm.
2.2. Mechanical design
The silicon-glass bonding technology is used for the
fabrication of the MEMS variable capacitor. To obtain
the required nominal capacitance, the dimension of the
capacitor was designed 876 µm × 876 µm, without including
the suspension spring. To keep the plate suspended above
the glass substrate and tuning with a low control voltage, the
spring constant was chosen at 1.116 N m−1. The ANSYS
simulation confirmed that the plates suspend well over
the substrate. To get the spring constant, the dimension of
the spring was designed 500 µm × 50 µm. Also, the modal
analysis is done to check the resonant frequency using the
ANSYS simulation. The mass of the suspended plate, which
consists of a single crystal silicon, is 3.2 µg and the fixed
parasitic capacitance that appears is estimated to be about
1 pF analytically. The gap-varying tunable capacitor has a
limited tuning range because the parallel plates which are
placed above and below are not controlled above the linear
range by the electrostatic force. The proposed capacitor is
using the serial plates which are placed side by side and are
not shortened even if an electrostatic force for tuning is applied
above a maximum value.

83
S Seok et al

silicon s ilic o n

glas s
glass

(a) (b)

s ilic o n silicon

glas s glass

(c) (d)

Figure 2. Process sequence. (a) Etching of silicon and gold patterning: the gap is defined by dry etching, the electrodes for tuning and PAD
feed-through is patterned. (b) Bonding of silicon and glass: to make the designed capacitor, the anodic bonding between silicon and the
pyrex glass is performed. (c) CMP of the bonded silicon wafer: The designed thickness of the silicon is made by the CMP process. (d) ICP
etching of the silicon and Au evaporation: to make the capacitor finally, silicon dry etching is performed and the Au signal line for RF
frequency range is evaporated.

Figure 3. The SEM picture of the fabricated MEMS variable capacitor.

The prototype area-varying tunable capacitor is designed
to be operated over the RF. The gold (Au) is used as the
signal line because the resistance of the signal line reduces
the quality factor of the capacitor. The pad of the RF device
should be designed specially to make the RF signal through
the RF devices pass well.
3. Fabrication
The prototype capacitor is fabricated using the silicon-glass
bonding process and chemical mechanical polish (CMP).
The process sequence is shown in figure 2 which is as
follows: (a) 3-µm-thick silicon is etched to make the control
gap by using the ICP deep etcher. This gap determines
the tuning range of the area-varying tuning capacitor. (b)
Cr (500 Å) and Au (4500 Å) are evaporated consecutively
and patterned on the pyrex glass substrate to make the
tuning electrode. Au is etched using the etchant which is
made by the ratio of HCl:HNO3 = 3:1 and Cr is removed
by CR7. (c) The silicon and glass are bonded using
the anodic bonding process. The bonding temperature is
430 ◦ C and the applied voltage on the glass is –800 V.
(d) The backside of the bonded wafer is etched in the
tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution until the
thickness of the silicon is 10 µm. The wet etched silicon
wafer is polished to the desired thickness by CMP. (e) Finally,
the silicon structure is etched by using the ICP deep etcher to
implement the 608 comb fingers of the capacitor. After that,
Au is evaporated on the wafer for the RF signal line.
The process sequence mentioned above is better than
conventional surface micromachining for making the MEMS
capacitor, which consists of the three polysilicon layers. This
process needs at least five masks to make the capacitor. But
the developed process needs only three masks, which results
in a simpler process and cost reduction. The SEM picture of
the fabricated capacitor is shown in figure 3. The designed
608 comb fingers are implemented successfully.

84

27.7 – j 112.8
13.6 – j 49.5
1 GHz
2 GHz
Figure 4. The measured S11 parameter of the MEMS variable
capacitor.
4. Results and discussion
All measurements were made using the HP8510 network
analyser, picoprobe, a probe station and Serenade software of
AnsoftTM. The measurements include the parasitic capacitance
of the pads and the substrate.
The test of the fabricated capacitor was made in the
frequency range from 50 MHz to 10 GHz. The measured
Smith chart of the capacitor is described from 500 MHz to
4 GHz in figure 4. The self-resonant frequency is estimated at
4.35 GHz, which means the fabricated capacitor can be used
to this frequency range. The prototype area-varying tunable
capacitor has nominal capacitance of 1.4 pF.
The electrical model of the fabricated capacitor is
developed and proven by the Serenade software of the Ansoft
Corporation. The measured s-parameter is compared with the
developed model parameter to match the two s-parameters
continuously. It consists of the desired capacitance, the
parasitic capacitance with the substrate and the resistance of
the signal line. The parasitic capacitance can be reduced by
applying the same dc voltage to the substrate and the structure.
Because the proposed capacitor is defined as the overlap
capacitor between the parallel comb fingers, the parasitic
capacitance with the substrate can be made smaller by using
the same technique as mentioned above. The line resistance is
large due to the interconnection between the silicon structure
and gold line for the pads. This large resistance results in a
low Q-factor, which can be solved with the same plane two-
port structure for the capacitor. This method makes the RF
signal pass through only the capacitor structure and not the
bottom electrode. The developed model is shown in figure 5.
The capacitance change of the fabricated capacitor was also
measured using the HP8510 network analyser. The bias tee
is used in the measurement cable to apply the dc bias to the
control electrode.
The measured tuning characteristic is shown in figure 6.
The capacitor shows the 10% tuning range at 8 V dc bias. The
A novel linearly tunable MEMS variable capacitor
10
10Ω C d = 1.4 pF 500 Ω
C p = 1 pF C Cp = 0.2 pF
Figure 5. The developed MEMS variable capacitor model: the
desired capacitance (Cd) is 1.4 pF and the parasitic capacitance (Cp)
with the substrate is 1 pF and 0.2 pF. The resistance represents the
interconnection and the conductor loss in the line.
Figure 6. The measured tuning characteristics of the capacitor:
these data are extracted from the measured S11 parameter.
narrow tuning range results from the fringe field effect in a
high frequency range. As the moving part of the capacitor
moves closer to the counter electrode, the fringe field affects
the capacitance. But this fringe field effect can be ignored if
the capacitor structure is thicker.
5. Conclusion
The area variation tunable MEMS capacitor is designed
and fabricated by using ANSYS and HFSS simulators and
the silicon–glass anodic bonding process. The developed
fabrication process is better than the conventional surface
micromachining because it needs fewer masks. The prototype
capacitor shows the nominal capacitance of 1.4 pF when the
tuning voltage is 0 V and the Q-factor is 4 at 2 GHz. The
Q-factor of the micromachined capacitor is limited by the
series resistance of the interconnect. A wider interconnect
results in a higher Q-factor. Also, the electrical model of
the developed capacitor is presented and proved by an RF
simulator (Serenade software of the Ansoft Corporation). In
addition, the capacitor shows 10% capacitance change at
8 V with good linearity. The linear tuning characteristics
of the tuning element can improve the phase noise of the
voltage-controlled oscillator which is an important part of the
communication transceiver.
85
S Seok et al
Acknowledgment
The authors thank the staff of ISRC. This work was
supported by KETI (Korea Electronics Technology Institute),
Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy via grant ISRC
2000-X-6119. This work was partly funded by BK21 (Brain
Korea 21), Ministry of Education.
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