Inductive coupling and matching networks are used to increase the bandwidth of filters realized with aluminum nitride contour-mode resonators. Filter bandwidth has been doubled using a wirebonded combination of a wafer-level-packaged resonator chip and a high-Q integrated inductor chip. The three-pole filters have a center frequency near 500 MHz, an area of 9 mm × 9 mm, insertion loss of < 5 dB for a bandwidth of 0.4%, and a resonator unloaded Q of 1600.
This paper, the second of two parts, reports the measurement and characterization of a fully integrated oven controlled microelectromechanical oscillator (OCMO). The OCMO takes advantage of high thermal isolation and monolithic integration of both aluminum nitride (AlN) micromechanical resonators and electronic circuitry to thermally stabilize or ovenize all the components that comprise an oscillator. Operation at microscale sizes allows implementation of high thermal resistance platform supports that enable thermal stabilization at very low-power levels when compared with the state-of-the-art oven controlled crystal oscillators. A prototype OCMO has been demonstrated with a measured temperature stability of -1.2 ppb/°C, over the commercial temperature range while using tens of milliwatts of supply power and with a volume of 2.3 mm3 (not including the printed circuit board-based thermal control loop). In addition, due to its small thermal time constant, the thermal compensation loop can maintain stability during fast thermal transients (>10 °C/min). This new technology has resulted in a new paradigm in terms of power, size, and warm up time for high thermal stability oscillators. [2015-0036].
This paper, the first of two parts, reports the design and fabrication of a fully integrated oven controlled microelectromechanical oscillator (OCMO). This paper begins by describing the limits on oscillator frequency stability imposed by the thermal drift and electronic properties (Q, resistance) of both the resonant tank circuit and feedback electronics required to form an electronic oscillator. An OCMO is presented that takes advantage of high thermal isolation and monolithic integration of both micromechanical resonators and electronic circuitry to thermally stabilize or ovenize all the components that comprise an oscillator. This was achieved by developing a processing technique where both silicon-on-insulator complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuitry and piezoelectric aluminum nitride, AlN, micromechanical resonators are placed on a suspended platform within a standard CMOS integrated circuit. Operation at microscale sizes achieves high thermal resistances (∼10 °C/mW), and hence thermal stabilization of the oscillators at very low-power levels when compared with the state-of-the-art ovenized crystal oscillators, OCXO. A constant resistance feedback circuit is presented that incorporates on platform resistive heaters and temperature sensors to both measure and stabilize the platform temperature. The limits on temperature stability of the OCMO platform and oscillator frequency imposed by the gain of the constant resistance feedback loop, placement of the heater and temperature sensing resistors, as well as platform radiative and convective heat losses are investigated. [2015-0035].
Radio frequency microelectromechanical system (RF MEMS) devices are microscale devices that achieve superior performance relative to other technologies by taking advantage of the accuracy, precision, materials, and miniaturization available through microfabrication. To do this, these devices use their mechanical and electrical properties to perform a specific RF electrical function such as switching, transmission, or filtering. RF MEMS has been a popular area of research since the early 1990s, and within the last several years, the technology has matured sufficiently for commercialization and use in commercial market systems.
Eliminating spurious modes in Aluminum Nitride (AlN) microresonators improves their insertion loss and quality factor by reducing acoustic energy leakage. Spurious modes that result from transverse wave propagation, termed fine-frequency modes, leak energy and propagate in the electrical busing and appear near the fundamental resonance. Although these modes can be predicted using three-dimensional (3D) finite element methods (FEM) for devices with very short acoustic length (e.g. 1 acoustic wavelength), 3D FEM is very slow and memory intensive when compared to a two-dimensional (2D) simulation. A fast 2D coupling-of-modes (COM) model was developed to predict, identify and implement strategies to suppress the fine-frequency modes.
The goal of this project was to develop high frequency quality factor (fQ) product acoustic resonators matched to a standard RF impedance of 50 {Omega} using overmoded bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators. These resonators are intended to serve as filters in a chip scale mechanical RF spectrum analyzer. Under this program different BAW resonator designs and materials were studied theoretically and experimentally. The effort resulted in a 3 GHz, 50 {Omega}, sapphire overmoded BAW with a fQ product of 8 x 10{sup 13}, among the highest values ever reported for an acoustic resonator.
In this work, we demonstrated engineered modification of propagation of thermal phonons, i.e. at THz frequencies, using phononic crystals. This work combined theoretical work at Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Carnegie Mellon University; the MESA fabrication facilities at Sandia; and the microfabrication facilities at UNM to produce world-leading control of phonon propagation in silicon at frequencies up to 3 THz. These efforts culminated in a dramatic reduction in the thermal conductivity of silicon using phononic crystals by a factor of almost 30 as compared with the bulk value, and about 6 as compared with an unpatterned slab of the same thickness. This work represents a revolutionary advance in the engineering of thermoelectric materials for optimal, high-ZT performance. We have demonstrated the significant reduction of the thermal conductivity of silicon using phononic crystal structuring using MEMS-compatible fabrication techniques and in a planar platform that is amenable to integration with typical microelectronic systems. The measured reduction in thermal conductivity as compared to bulk silicon was about a factor of 20 in the cross-plane direction [26], and a factor of 6 in the in-plane direction. Since the electrical conductivity was only reduced by a corresponding factor of about 3 due to the removal of conductive material (i.e., porosity), and the Seebeck coefficient should remain constant as an intrinsic material property, this corresponds to an effective enhancement in ZT by a factor of 2. Given the number of papers in literature devoted to only a small, incremental change in ZT, the ability to boost the ZT of a material by a factor of 2 simply by reducing thermal conductivity is groundbreaking. The results in this work were obtained using silicon, a material that has benefitted from enormous interest in the microelectronics industry and that has a fairly large thermoelectric power factor. In addition, the techniques and scientific understanding developed in the research can be applied to a wide range of materials, with the caveat that the thermal conductivity of such a material be dominated by phonon, rather than electron, transport. In particular, this includes several thermoelectric materials with attractive properties at elevated temperatures (i.e., greater than room temperature), such as silicon germanium and silicon carbide. It is reasonable that phononic crystal patterning could be used for high-temperature thermoelectric devices using such materials, with applications in energy scavenging via waste-heat recovery and thermoelectric cooling for high-performance microelectronic circuits. The only part of the ZT picture missing in this work was the experimental measurement of the Seebeck coefficient of our phononic crystal devices. While a first-order approximation indicates that the Seebeck coefficient should not change significantly from that of bulk silicon, we were not able to actually verify this assumption within the timeframe of the project. Additionally, with regards to future high-temperature applications of this technology, we plan to measure the thermal conductivity reduction factor of our phononic crystals as elevated temperatures to confirm that it does not diminish, given that the nominal thermal conductivity of most semiconductors, including silicon, decreases with temperature above room temperature. We hope to have the opportunity to address these concerns and further advance the state-of-the-art of thermoelectric materials in future projects.