Techniques for improving Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) reflector and resonator structures are disclosed, including filters, oscillators and systems that may include such devices. A Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) resonator of this disclosure may comprise a substrate and an active piezoelectric resonant volume. The active piezoelectric resonant volume of the Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) resonator may have a main resonant frequency. The active piezoelectric resonant volume of the Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) resonator may comprise first and second piezoelectric layers having respective piezoelectric axis that substantially oppose one another. A first patterned layer may be disposed within the active piezoelectric volume. This may, but need not facilitate suppression of spurious modes. The main resonant frequency of the Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) resonator may be in a super high frequency (SHF) band. The main resonant frequency of the Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) resonator may be in an extremely high frequency (EHF) band.

A micro-electrical-mechanical system (MEMS) guided wave device includes a plurality of electrodes arranged below a piezoelectric layer (e.g., either embedded in a slow wave propagation layer or supported by a suspended portion of the piezoelectric layer) and configured for transduction of a lateral acoustic wave in the piezoelectric layer. The piezoelectric layer permits one or more additions or modifications to be made thereto, such as trimming (thinning) of selective areas, addition of loading materials, sandwiching of piezoelectric layer regions between electrodes to yield capacitive elements or non-linear elastic convolvers, addition of sensing materials, and addition of functional layers providing mixed domain signal processing utility.

A method for fabricating bulk acoustic wave resonator with mass adjustment structure, comprising following steps of: forming a sacrificial structure mesa on a substrate; etching the sacrificial structure mesa such that any two adjacent parts have different heights, a top surface of a highest part of the sacrificial structure mesa is coincident with a mesa top extending plane; forming an insulating layer on the sacrificial structure mesa and the substrate; polishing the insulating layer to form a polished surface; forming a bulk acoustic wave resonance structure including a top electrode, a piezoelectric layer and a bottom electrode on the polished surface; etching the sacrificial structure mesa to form a cavity; the insulating layer between the polished surface and the mesa top extending plane forms a frequency tuning structure, the insulating layer between the mesa top extending plane and the cavity forms a mass adjustment structure.

In one embodiment, a resonator device includes a substrate comprising a piezoelectric material and a set of electrodes on the substrate. The electrodes are in parallel and a width of the electrodes is equal to a distance between the electrodes. The resonator device further includes a set of switches, with each switch coupled to a respective electrode. The switches are to connect to opposite terminals of an alternating current (AC) signal source and select between the terminals of the AC signal source based on an input signal.

A bulk acoustic wave filter comprises a substrate, an insulating layer disposed on the substrate and having a first cavity and a second cavity formed therein, a first bulk-acoustic-wave-resonance-structure disposed on the first cavity and a second bulk-acoustic-wave-resonance-structure disposed on the second cavity. The first bulk-acoustic-wave-resonance-structure comprises a first bottom electrode disposed on the first cavity, a first top electrode disposed on the first bottom electrode, a first piezoelectric layer portion sandwiched between the first top electrode and the first bottom electrode, and a first frequency tuning structure disposed between the first cavity and the first bottom electrode. The second bulk-acoustic-wave-resonance-structure comprises a second bottom electrode disposed on the second cavity, a second top electrode disposed on the second bottom electrode, a second piezoelectric layer portion sandwiched between the second top electrode and the second bottom electrode.

A surface acoustic wave resonator device comprises a substrate supporting: a gateable, electrically conducting layer; an interdigital transducer (IDT); a reflector grating that comprises a plurality of electrically separated fingers; a main ohmic contact; and a gate element. The IDT is configured to be connectable to a ground. The conducting layer is configured to be connectable to the ground via the main ohmic contact, while each of said fingers is electrically connected to a lateral side of the conducting layer. This defines a gateable channel, which extends from the fingers to the ground via the conducting layer and the main ohmic contact. The gate element is electrically insulated from the conducting layer. The gate element is configured to allow an electrical impedance of the gateable channel to be continuously tuned by applying a voltage bias to this gate element with respect to the ground, in operation of the device.

Disclosed is a gallium arsenide (GaAs) enabled tunable filter for, e.g., 6 GHz Wi-Fi RF Frontend, with integrated high-performance varactors, metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors, and 3D solenoid inductors. The tunable filter comprises a hyper-abrupt variable capacitor (varactor) high capacitance tuning ratio. The tunable filter also comprises a GaAs substrate in which through-GaAs-vias (TGV) are formed. The varactor along with the MIM capacitors and the 3D inductors is formed in an upper conductive structure on upper surface of the GaAs substrate. Lower conductive structure comprising lower conductors is formed on lower surface of the GaAs substrate. Electrical coupling between the lower and upper conductive structures is provided by the TGVs. The tunable filter can be integrated with radio frequency front end (RFFE) devices.

Due to strong needs to reduce the dimensions and the cost of the RF filters and to reduce the number of filters required in an mobile handsets and wireless system covering numbers of operation bands, tunable RF filters which can cover as many bands or frequency ranges as possible are needed so that the number of filters can be reduced in the mobile handsets and wireless systems. This invention provides tunable surface acoustic wave resonators and filters utilizing semiconducting piezoelectric layers having embedded or elevated electrode doped regions. Both metallization ratio and loading mass are changed by varying a DC biasing voltage to effect a change in the resonant frequency of the tunable SAW devices.

Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) devices for harvesting sound energy and methods for fabricating MEMS devices for harvesting sound energy are provided. In an embodiment, a method for fabricating a MEMS device for harvesting sound energy includes forming a pressure sensitive MEMS structure disposed over a semiconductor substrate and including a suspended structure in a cavity. Further, the method includes etching the semiconductor substrate to form an acoustic port through the semiconductor substrate configured to allow acoustic pressure to deflect the suspended structure.

A tunable bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator includes: a first electrode adapted to be coupled to an oscillator circuit; a second electrode adapted to be coupled to the oscillator circuit; and a piezoelectric layer between the first electrode and the second electrode; and a Bragg mirror. The Bragg mirror has: a metal layer; and a dielectric layer between the metal layer and either of the first electrode or the second electrode. The tunable BAW resonator also includes: a radio-frequency (RF) signal source having a first end and a second end, the first end coupled to the first electrode, and the second end coupled to the second electrode; and an amplifier circuit between either the first electrode or the second electrode and the Bragg mirror metal layer.