4 W Dual-Contact Material MEMS Relay with a Contact Force Maximizing Structure

Abstract

This paper reports an unprecedented 4 W MEMS relay that utilizes a dual contact-material system and a contact force maximizing structure. The contact force-maximizing structure is designed to achieve extremely low contact resistance. So far, commercialized MEMS relays have achieved a power level of 0.03 W in hot-switching conditions. In this work, we achieved a MEMS relay with operation reliability up to 5.7× 104 cycles and 1.3× 103 cycles at 10 V/300 mA (3 W) and 10 V/400 mA (4 W) signals, respectively, in hot-switching conditions. This achievement was due to an extremely-low contact resistance of 1.65m\Ω achieved by utilizing the proposed contact force maximizing structure coupled with dual contact materials.