Design, Fabrication and Characterization of a PCM-Based Compact 4-Bit Capacitor Bank

This paper reports on the design, fabrication, and characterization of a 4-bit switched PCM-based capacitor bank. The presented capacitor bank operates over the frequency range 1 GHz to 6 GHz with a capacitance tuning range of 0.48 pF to 4.53 pF. The overall size of the 4-bit capacitor is 0.9 mm × 0.6 mm, including DC pads and a CPW port to allow for measurements. The capacitor bank is realized with a six-layer micro fabrication GeTe process on a 3-inch glass wafer. The measurement results show no self-resonance up to 8 GHz.