The oxygen plasma dry release process of the membrane bridge of RF MEMS switches

In this paper the oxygen plasma dry release process for membrane-bridge RF MEMS switches is studied and several methods are used to improve the dry release process. The residual PR (Photoresist) on the device substrate after different process time are observed and measured in this paper. The measured data shows that the residual PR exponentially reduces with etch time. It is found that the residual PR on the bottom surface of the membrane bridge is more than that on the substrate. The completely released RF MEMS switch using oxygen plasma dry etch process is obtained.