Long-term RF Burn-in Effects on Dielectric Charging of MEMS Capacitive Switches

This paper experimentally quantified the long-term effects of RF burn-in, in terms of burn-in and recovery times, and found the effects to be semipermanent. Specifically, most of the benefit could be realized after approximately 20 min of RF burn-in, which would then last for several months. Additionally, since similar effects were observed on both real and faux switches, the effects appeared to be of electrical rather than mechanical nature. These encouraging results should facilitate the application of the switches in RF systems, where high RF power could be periodically applied to rejuvenate the switches.