Compact 4-Bit DMTL Phase Shifter for Ku Band Applications

This paper presents a compact design of DMTL based phase shifter for Ku band applications. Conventional approach for DMTL based phase shifters is to load CPW transmission line periodically with similar type of MEMS capacitors at particular spacing. In this paper, a novel approach is adapted to reduce the size as well as the number of switches by optimizing different unit cells for each section rather than fixed MIM capacitor. A4-bit phase shifter demonstrates an average insertion loss of 2.98 dB at 17GHz and has size of 4.5 mm with 7 MEMS bridges compared to 15 or 30 MEMS bridges using conventional approach. The pull-in voltage is simulated to 16 V and switching time is calculated to H ≍ 56μs at 20V.