A Feasibility Study on Piezoelectric MEMS

Lateral Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonators

including Thermal Effect

Authored by: Mounira Bengashier, Ivan Grech, Owen Casha, Barnaby

Portelli, Russell Farrugia and Edward Gatt
Department of Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics
University of Malta
E-mail: mounira.bengashier.15@um.edu.mt
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Objectives
 INTRODUCTION
 BACKGROUND THEORY
 ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Effect of Temperature variation on Resonant frequency
 Effect of Temperature variation on Quality factor
 PROTOTYPE DESIGN and Fabrication
 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
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Introduction
 This paper presents the design and analysis of two types of TPoS MEMS resonators
using PZT and AlN, which are made to resonate in the lateral bulk acoustic mode
(LBAW).

 Both the PZT-based MEMS (SINTEF PZTMEMS) and the AlN-based MEMS
(MEMSCAP PiezoMUMPs) processes have been considered in this paper, and
Resonator parameters such as the resonant frequency, quality factor and
temperature variation effects (over a temperature range from (273 - 573 K)
have been evaluated using finite element methods (FEM) techniques.

 The temperature effect on the resonant frequency has also been evaluated analytically
and the results were compared to those derived from FEM. The operation of the
resonators has been investigated when operating in the first and third lateral
resonance LBAW modes.
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BACKGROUND THEORY
 PiezoMUMPs Fabrication Steps
PiezoMUMPs is a type of TPoS MEMS that offers a reliable standard
process.

0.5 μm layer of AlN

10 μm SOI
(silicon on insulator) layer.
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BACKGROUND THEORY ● Term ● Definition

● f ● Resonant frequency

● n ● Number of modes
 Resonant Frequency and LBAW mode
● L ● Cantilever length

● Constant

● Effective Young’s modulus
● Effective density
 Material Properties and Temperature Effect ● Effective stiffness
• Temperature Effect on Young’s Module Effective mass
● Young’s modulus at 0 K
B, ● positive temperature independent
constants.
• Temperature Effect on Density

• Temperature Effect on Length

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ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Analytical Results
Range of temperature from 273 to 573 K.
Values for silicon of ,, at a nominal temperature = 317 K were considered
ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Analytical Results
Range of temperature from 273 to 573 K.
Values for silicon of ,, at a nominal temperature = 317 K were considered

Temperature Effect on Young’s Module

Normalized Young’s Module

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ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Design and Simulation Results
Both resonators were simulated using Coventorware MemMech with the same
Manhattan brick mesh type having a size of 5 μm by 5 μm by 2 μm.
The natural resonant frequency for the first mode was found to be 19.650 MHz
for PZTMEMS resonator and 19.807 MHz for PiezoMUMPs
resonator at 273 K
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ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Temperature Variation Effect on SOI layer using FEM
The effect of temperature variation from 273 K to 573 K for the different SOI thickness of the
two processes (10 μm for PiezoMUMPs and 5.5 μm for PZTMEMS),
was initially studied by considering only the SOI layer.
Using the linear approximation of Young’s modulus value of silicon based on previous equation
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ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Comparison of Analytical and FEM Simulations Results
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ANALYTICAL AND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Temperature Variation Effect on the PZTMEMS and PiezoMUMPs
Resonators
 Accurate Resonant Frequency FEM Modeling







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ANALYTICALAND SIMULATION RESULTS
 Quality Factor


In this case, choosing a substrate dimension
of 1000 x 1000 x 400 µm3 makes it the best
choice for the first, third lateral mode resonant
frequency.
The FE module of the resonator includes
the substrate for Anchor loss simulation.



ANALYTICALAND SIMULATION RESULTS

 The change in the quality factor over the considered temperature range is
relatively small and it was found to be as it is shown in Table 1.
 This means that fine thermal tuning of the resonators can be carried without
significantly affecting the resonant frequency.


● Type of resonator ● PZTMEMS ● PiezoMUMPs
● Quality factor variation % ● 1.03% ● 2.18%
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PROTOTYPE DESIGN And FABRICATIONS

Drive1
H1- element Drive2 H2- element
Ground
Fabricated Prototypes
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CONCLUSION
 Both the analytical and FEM results show that these resonators have an almost linearly
decreasing resonant frequency with an increase in temperature.

 The FEM simulations have also shown that the quality factor of the designed resonators,
varies minimally over a wide temperature range.

 Different Prototype designs for Characterizations with:

 One Port
 Two Port
 Resonators with Thermal tuning elements:
 Surface heating
 SOI- Layer heating.

 This means that thermally fine tuning the resonant frequency is feasible without affecting the
quality factor.
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Thank you