CBRAM RF Switching Technology: Potential future of non-volatile, low cost, low power, and printed RF/microwave switching applications
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CBRAM RF Switching Technology: Potential future of non-volatile, low cost, low power, and printed RF/microwave switching applications
Fri, 09/04/2021 - 14:00 to 15:00
Location:
Speaker:
Jayakrishnan M. Purushothama
Affiliation:
ISSS
Synopsis:
In this research, we try to answer the following question: Is it possible to realize a low cost non-volatile RF switch (integrated into RF devices) using simple and rapid industrial technology used for printed electronics, both on classic electronic substrates and on flexible substrates like paper? We are happy to say that we answered these questions with a big Yes!
Here, we present our efforts and achieved results, focusing on the development of a new technology of low-cost non-volatile RF switches, with both high performance, and flexibility of implementation, in a bandwidth of 0 – 5 GHz (that is foreseen to be extended further in near future). This RF switching technology is derived from the Conductive Bridging Random Access Memory (CBRAM) concept which is well known as a non-volatile memory technology. As the name Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) indicates, the CBRAM/MIM switching cell is a three-layer structure in which an electrochemically asymmetric metallic electrode pair sandwiches a layer of electronically insulating ion-conductor among them to form a structure similar to a parallel plate capacitor.
The switch action is obtained by electrochemical growth or dissolution of a metallic filament among these electrodes, through the ion-conductor layer, to define its impedance. This mechanism is actuated by applied low power DC voltage pulses, and requires a power supply only to change an impedance state, and not to maintain it, making this a true non-volatile RF switch technology. It is worthy to note at this point of time that the classic and commercially used RF switching technologies like semiconductor switches (which include PIN diode switches, FETs, Hybrid switches and so on) and RF-MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems) switches do not offer the feature of non-volatility. These switches require a constant power supply to maintain their impedance state, despite of their superfine and proven switching characteristics up to THz and beyond.
Our accomplishments in these directions, includes the realization of non-volatile switches, and truly non-volatile electronically reconfigurable RF/microwave devices like chipless RFID tags, filters and antennas, and a revolutionary fully-printed electronically rewritable chipless RFID tag on flexible substrate and so on, and all these notably without using any ‘clean-room’ steps or ‘high-temperature’ processes among the optimized steps for the fabrication of the same.
Biography:
Jayakrishnan Methapettyparambu Purushothama, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Microwave and Antenna Engineering Research Group,
School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
Brief Biography: Jayakrishnan Methapettyparambu Purushothama received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree in Electronics and Electronics Science, respectively from the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India, and Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, Kerala, India, subsequently in 2012 and 2014, with first rank position for both, and the Ph.D. degree in RF and Microwave Electronics Engineering from the Université Grenoble Alpes, France, in 2019.
From 2014 to 2016, he worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Electromagnetics and Antennas, Department of Electronics, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India. There he worked on implantable sensor antenna systems for wireless sensing, for medical applications. From 2016 to 2019, he worked as a Ph.D. scholar with the Laboratoire de Conception et d'Intégration des Systèmes (LCIS), Grenoble-INP, Université Grenoble Alpes, France, and since December 2019 to February 2021, he worked there as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the ScattererID project (funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program), focused on development of CBRAM based RF switches, and their integration in passive RF/microwave devices, especially in chipless RFID applications. Since February 2021, he joined the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK, as a Research Associate with the Microwave and Antenna Engineering Research Group. His research interests include microwave antennas and beamforming, chipless RFID, CBRAM based solid state RF switches, microwave-based biosensors, implantable antennas, RCS studies, dielectric characterization, and similar.
Dr. Methapettyparambu Purushothama is a recipient of the 4th prize and cash award in the 6th international student paper competition organized by the International Union of Radio Science (URSI), held at URSI Atlantic Radio Science Meeting (AT-RASC) 2018, Gran Canaria, Spain, and was a finalist for student paper competition at the IEEE-MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2019, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He has received the Young Scientist Award (YSA) from URSI, at the URSI - General Assembly and Scientific Symposium (GASS) 2020, Rome, Italy. He has also cleared the University Grants Commission (UGC), Govt. of India, National Eligibility Test (NET) for Assistant Professorship in Indian Universities, with an award of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), being among the 0.6% out of 0.6 million candidates who appeared for the examination, and qualified for both NET and JRF, in June 2013.