Van der Waals force
RF MEMS components are fragile and require wafer level packaging or single chip packaging which allow for hermetic cavity sealing. A cavity is required to allow movement, whereas hermeticity is required to prevent cancellation of the spring force by the Van der Waals force exerted by water droplets and other contaminants on the beam. RF MEMS switches, switched capacitors and varactors can be packaged using wafer level packaging. Large monolithic RF MEMS filters, phase shifters, and tunable matching networks require single chip packaging.