Clark T.-C. Nguyen (Advisor)

This thesis presents the design, fabrication, testing, and performance analysis of micromechanical resonant switches, or "resoswitches," as an innovative alternative to traditional transistor-based components in ultra-low-power wireless communication systems. By harnessing mechanical resonance, resoswitches introduce a novel paradigm for energy efficient receivers with promising applications in remote sensing, RFID, environmental monitoring, and other domains where power conservation is crucial. Unlike conventional electronic components, resoswitches consume no standby power, allowing for...

The increasing demands for higher performance, advanced wireless and mobile communication systems have continuously driven device innovations and system improvements. In order to reduce power consumption and integration complexity, radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) resonators and filters have been considered as direct replacements for off-chip passive components. In this dissertation, a new radio architecture for direct channel selection is explored. The primary elements in this new architecture include a multitude of closely-spaced narrowband filters (...

This paper demonstrates, via a novel compact model and experiments, that squegging in micromechanical resonant electrical switches (resoswitches) [1] is controllable via impact electrode design. The model captures the nonlinear dynamics of impact contact and predicts squegging. Unlike other numeric and finite-element (FEM)-based models, this physical parameter-based model has no convergence difficulties when simulating impact, accurately captures squegging, and runs within any circuit simulator with up to 100× simulation time improvement compared to commercial software....