Devices and methods for improving voltage handling and/or bi-directionality of stacks of elements when connected between terminals

A method for compensating parasitic capacitances, comprising:nproviding a plurality of stacked switches, the stacked switches proceeding from a first switch closest to a first terminal and farthest from a second terminal to an n-th switch farthest from the first terminal and closest to the second terminal, the first terminal being a terminal through which a voltage source is adapted to be coupled to the stacked switches;sizing the stacked switches so that the first switch has the same size of the n-th switch; andfurther sizing the stacked switches so that the i-th switch (i=2, 3, 4, . . . ) has the same size of the (n−i+1)-th switch,wherein the sized first and n-th switches are larger than the sized second and (n−1)-th switches, and so on.

A method for compensating parasitic capacitances, comprising:nproviding a plurality of stacked switches, the stacked switches proceeding from a first switch closest to a first terminal and farthest from a second terminal to an n-th switch farthest from the first terminal and closest to the second terminal, the first terminal being a terminal through which a voltage source is adapted to be coupled to the stacked switches; andsizing the stacked switches so that the first switch has the same size of the n-th switch,wherein:the first terminal is an RF terminal and the second terminal is an RF terminal, andthe plurality of stacked switches is part of a unit cell for a significant bit sub-circuit of a digitally tunable capacitor (DTC), the significant bit sub-circuit being coupled between the first RF terminal and the second RF terminal.

A stacked device comprising:na plurality of stacked switches, the stacked switches proceeding from a first switch closest to a first terminal and farthest from a second terminal to an n-th switch farthest from the first terminal and closest to the second terminal, the first terminal being a terminal through which a voltage source is adapted to be coupled to the stacked switches, the stacked switches being sized such that the first and the n-th switch have the same size and such that the i-th switch (i=2, 3, 4, . . . ) has the same size of the (n−i+1)-th switch,wherein the sized first and n-th switches are larger than the sized second and (n−1)-th switches, and so on.

A stacked device comprising:na plurality of stacked switches, the stacked switches proceeding from a first switch closest to a first terminal and farthest from a second terminal to an n-th switch farthest from the first terminal and closest to the second terminal, the first terminal being a terminal through which a voltage source is adapted to be coupled to the stacked switches, the stacked switches being sized such that the first and the n-th switch have the same size,wherein:the first terminal is an RF terminal and the second terminal is an RF terminal, andthe plurality of stacked switches is part of a unit cell for a significant bit sub-circuit of a digitally tunable capacitor (DTC), the significant bit sub-circuit being coupled between the first RF terminal and the second RF terminal.