The development of RF MEMS switches has accelerated considerably over the past several years, and currently there are several switches which have been tested to 50-100 billion cycles with no failures. However, it is still hard to package these devices, and fundamental questions regarding the need of a hermetic package and the failure modes of RF MEMS switches under high power conditions are not well understood. The talk will present the latest work in high isolation switch networks, phase shifters and tunable filters. It will also present detailed modeling on the intermodulation distortion of MEMS devices and how they are 40-50 dB better than GaAs devices. The talk will conclude with the latest research areas in RF MEMS switches, varactors and tunable networks.

Gabriel M. Rebeiz (Fellow, IEEE) earned his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and is currently a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research interests include applying micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) for the development of novel components and sub-systems for radars and communication systems. He is also interested in SiGe RFIC design for receiver applications, and in the development of planar antennas and microwave/millimeter-wave front-end electronics for communication systems, automotive collision-avoidance sensors, and X- to W-band phased arrays.

Prof. Rebeiz was the recipient of the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in April 1991 and the URSI International Isaac Koga Gold Medal Award for Outstanding International Research in August 1993. Prof. Rebeiz was selected as the 1997-1998 Eta-Kappa-Nu EECS Professor of the Year. He also received the 1998 Amoco Foundation Teaching Award, given yearly to one faculty at the University of Michigan, for best undergraduate teaching. Prof. Rebeiz is the co-recipient with his student Scott Barker, of the IEEE 2000 Microwave Prize, and the IEEE MTT 2003 Outstanding Young Engineer Award.