RF bulk acoustic wave resonators and filters

Small sized, highly selective solidly mounted bulk acoustic wave (BAW) band pass filters are of great interest for mobile and wireless systems operating in the frequency range of 0.8 GHz up to more than 10 GHz. They can be fabricated on silicon or glass wafers using standard semiconductor integration techniques. These filters are based on electro-acoustic high Q resonators, which exploit the thickness extensional mode of a thin piezoelectric AlN or ZnO film. This film has to be grown with its polar axis, oriented perpendicular to the substrate. Both the deposition process and using a textured electrode support excellent c-axis oriented growth and thus high electromechanical coupling coefficient k(t) and filter bandwidth. Modelling of the filter and resonator response is performed by means of a combination of a 1D electro-acoustic model together with an electromagnetic model. The paper shows examples of filters operating in the range between 2 and 8 GHz.