Hello, I'm trying to gather information on the current state-of-the-art
of electrical switches and relays based on MEMS technology.  Quantities
of interest are gate capacitance, on-resistance, threshold voltage, and
device volume.  More specifically, I am trying to determine if any MEMS
switches buildable today have a lower value of the quantity

        q = (C V^2) * (R C) * v

(where R=on-resistance, C=gate capacitance, V=control voltage, v=device
volume)
than the best CMOS transistors buildable today, for which I estimate q
is on the order of 600,000 eV * ns * um^3.  (For R=10 kohm, C=10 fF,
V=1V, v=100 um^3.)

This particular quantity q is interesting because it turns out to
determine the minimum size for a densly-packed block of circuitry in
which asymptotically reversible charging techniques can achieve higher
computational performance than traditional dissipative charging, due to
heat-dissipation issues.

With present-day CMOS devices, we estimate that this minimum size for a
useful reversible computer is roughly on the order of millimeters, but
if there exist MEMS switches with lower q (which might be the case due
to lower resistance in the direct metal-to-metal contact) then we might
be able to do even better.

Thanks very much for any references to literature on MEMS switches.
In addition to the above-mentioned quantities, I am also interested in
the devices' maximum switching frequency.

If there is interest, I will post a summary of replies to this mailing
list.

Thanks very much,
-Mike Frank
MIT Reversible Computing Project
http://www.ai.mit.edu/~mpf