A Stacked MOSFET-Based RF Switch with High DC Voltage Handling Capabilities

A series switch arrangement constructed from stacked MOS transistors and capable of handling high-voltage DC and RF signals is presented in the paper. The result is achieved by using three switch branches, each comprising a resistive bias network that provides uniform voltage division in the stack at DC and AC. A hardware prototype implemented in a 90nm SOI-CMOS process with 3V transistors demonstrated DC voltage handling of ±14V and RF handling of 16V peak with IIP 3 =74dBm at 1GHz, insertion loss and isolation of 0.19dB and 55dB respectively, and 0.1dB insertion loss bandwidth of over 4GHz.