FILM BULK ACOUSTIC RESONATOR AND FABRICATION METHOD THEREOF
20210184643 · 2021-06-17
Inventors
Cpc classification
H03H2003/021
ELECTRICITY
International classification
Abstract
The present disclosure provides a film bulk acoustic resonator and its fabrication method. The fabrication method includes providing a first substrate, and sequentially forming a first electrode layer, a piezoelectric material layer, and a second electrode layer, on the first substrate; forming a support layer on the second electrode layer and forming a cavity with a top opening in the support layer, where the cavity passes through the support layer; providing a second substrate and bonding the second substrate with the support layer; removing the first substrate; and patterning the first electrode layer, the piezoelectric material layer, and the second electrode layer to form a first electrode, a piezoelectric layer, and a second electrode.
Claims
1. A method for fabricating a film bulk acoustic resonator, comprising: providing a first substrate, and sequentially forming a first electrode layer, a piezoelectric material layer, and a second electrode layer, on the first substrate; forming a support layer on the second electrode layer and forming a cavity with a top opening in the support layer, wherein the cavity passes through the support layer; providing a second substrate and bonding the second substrate with the support layer; removing the first substrate; and patterning the first electrode layer, the piezoelectric material layer, and the second electrode layer to form a first electrode, a piezoelectric layer, and a second electrode.
2. The method according to claim 1, wherein before forming the first electrode layer, the method further includes: forming a release layer on the first substrate.
3. The method according to claim 1, wherein before forming the support layer and after forming the second electrode layer, the method further includes: forming an etch stop layer on the second electrode layer.
4. The method according to claim 1, wherein after patterning the first electrode layer, the piezoelectric material layer, and the second electrode layer to form the first electrode, the piezoelectric layer, and the second electrode, the method further includes: forming a passivation layer covering the first electrode, the piezoelectric layer, and the second electrode.
5. The method according to claim 1, wherein: the second substrate is bonded with the support layer by thermocompression bonding or dry film bonding.
6. The method according to claim 2, wherein: the release layer is made of a material including a dielectric material, a light solidification adhesive, a thermally melt adhesive, a laser release material, or a combination thereof. The method according to claim 6, wherein: when the release layer is made of the dielectric material, the dielectric material and the first substrate are removed by a thinning process; when the release layer is made of the light solidification adhesive, the first substrate is removed through eliminating the light solidification adhesive by a chemical agent; when the release layer is made of the thermally melt adhesive, the first substrate is removed through a thermal release process by removing adhesiveness of the thermally melt adhesive; and when the release layer is made of the laser release material, the first substrate is peeled off by burning the release layer using a laser.
8. A film bulk acoustic resonator, comprising: a second substrate; a support layer bonded on the second substrate, wherein a cavity, passing through the support layer, is disposed in the support layer; and a second electrode, a piezoelectric layer, and a first electrode which are sequentially disposed on the support layer.
9. The film bulk acoustic resonator according to 8, wherein: the support layer is bonded with the second substrate by thermocompression bonding or dry film bonding.
10. The film bulk acoustic resonator according to 9, wherein: a bonding layer is disposed on a side of the support layer for bonding with the second substrate by the thermocompression bonding.
11. The film bulk acoustic resonator according to 9, wherein: a dry film layer is disposed on a side of the second substrate for bonding with the support layer by the dry film bonding.
12. The film bulk acoustic resonator according to 8, wherein: an etch stop layer is disposed between the second electrode and the support layer.
13. The film bulk acoustic resonator according to 8, further including: a passivation layer, covering the first electrode, the piezoelectric layer, and the second electrode.
14. The film bulk acoustic resonator according to 8, further including: at least two soldering pads, wherein the two soldering pads, disposed outside the cavity, are electrically connected to the first electrode and the second electrode, respectively.
15. The film bulk acoustic resonator according to 8, wherein: a thickness of the support layer is about 0.5 micrometer to about 3 micrometers
Description
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0020] In order to clearly explain the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosure or the existing technology, the drawings that need to be used in the description of the embodiments or the existing technology are illustrated hereinafter. Obviously, the drawings in the following description are merely some embodiments of the present disclosure. For those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained based on such drawings without creative work.
[0021]
[0022]
[0023]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0024] A film bulk acoustic resonator and a fabrication method of film bulk acoustic resonator in the present disclosure may be further described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and specific embodiments hereinafter. The advantages and features of the present disclosure may be more apparent according to the following description and the accompanying drawings. However, it should be noted that the concept of the technical solution of the present disclosure may be implemented in various different forms and may not be limited to specific embodiments set forth herein. The accompanying drawings may be all in simplified forms and non-precise scales and may be merely for convenience and clarity of the purpose of the embodiments of the present disclosure.
[0025] The terms “first”, “second” and the like in the specification and the claims may be used to distinguish similar elements and may be not necessarily used to describe a particular order or chronological order. It should be understood that the used terms may be substituted, as appropriate. For example, the embodiments described herein of the present disclosure may be enabled to operate in other sequences than sequences described or illustrated herein. Similarly, if the method described herein comprise a series of steps, the order of the steps presented herein may not be necessarily the only order in which the steps may be performed, and some of the steps may be omitted and/or other steps, which are not described herein, may be added to the method. If components in one of the drawings are same as components in other drawings, although the components may be easily recognized in all drawings, in order to make the description of the drawings clearer, labels of all the same components may not be marked in each figure in the present specification.
[0026] Various embodiments of the present disclosure provide a fabrication method of a film bulk acoustic resonator. For example, as shown in
[0032]
[0033] As shown in
[0034] Optionally, as shown in
[0035] Next, as shown in
[0036] The first electrode layer 202′ and the second electrode layer 204′ may be made of any suitable conductive materials or semiconductor materials known in the existing technology, where the conductive material may be a metal material with conductive properties, such as one metal or a stacked layer of the following metals including molybdenum (Mo), aluminum (Al), copper (Cu), tungsten (W), tantalum (Ta), platinum (Pt), ruthenium (Ru), rhodium (Rh), iridium (Ir), chromium (Cr), titanium (Ti), gold (Au), osmium (Os), rhenium (Re), palladium (Pd), and the like; and the semiconductor material may be, for example, Si, Ge, SiGe, SiC, SiGeC, and the like. The first electrode layer 202′ and the second electrode layer 204′ may be formed by a physical vapor deposition process or a chemical vapor deposition process such as magnetron sputtering, evaporation, and the like. The piezoelectric material layer 203′ may also be called a piezoelectric resonance layer or a piezoelectric resonance part. The material of the piezoelectric material layer 203′ may be one or a combination of piezoelectric materials with wurtzite crystal structure, including aluminum nitride (AlN), zinc oxide (ZnO), lead zirconate titanate (PZT), lithium niobate (LiNbO.sub.3), quartz (Quartz), potassium niobate (KNbO.sub.3), lithium tantalate (LiTaO.sub.3), and the like. When the piezoelectric material layer 203′ includes aluminum nitride (AlN), the piezoelectric material layer 203′ may also include rare earth metals, such as at least one of scandium (Sc), erbium (Er), yttrium (Y), and lanthanum (La). Moreover, when the piezoelectric material layer 203′ includes aluminum nitride (AlN), the piezoelectric material layer 203′ may also include transition metals, such as at least one of zirconium (Zr), titanium (Ti), manganese (Mn), and hafnium (Hf). The piezoelectric material layer 203′ may be deposited by any suitable process known to those skilled in the art, such as chemical vapor deposition, physical vapor deposition, or atomic layer deposition. Preferably, in one embodiment, the first electrode layer 202′ and the second electrode layer 204′ may be made of metallic molybdenum (Mo); and the piezoelectric material layer 203′ may be made of aluminum nitride (AlN).
[0037] The shapes of the first electrode layer 202′, the piezoelectric material layer 203′, and the second electrode layer 204′ may be same or different, and the areas of the first electrode layer 202′, the piezoelectric material layer 203′, and the second electrode layer 204′ may be same or different. In one embodiment, the shapes and areas of the first electrode layer 202′, the piezoelectric material layer 203′, and the second electrode layer 204′ are same, where the shapes may all be polygonal, such as square.
[0038] Before forming the first electrode layer 202′, a seed layer (not shown in
[0039] Next, as shown in
[0040] In one embodiment, before forming the support layer 206, an etch stop layer 205 may be further formed on the second electrode layer 204′. The material of the etch stop layer 205 may include, but may not be limited to, silicon nitride (Si.sub.3N.sub.4) and silicon oxynitride (SiON). The etch stop layer 205 has a lower etch rate compared with the support layer 206 formed subsequently, which may prevent over-etching when the support layer 206 is subsequently etched to form the opening, thereby protecting the surface of the second electrode layer 204′ under the etch stop layer 205 from being damaged.
[0041] Next, as shown in
[0042] Next, as shown in
[0043] Next, as shown in
[0044] After the patterning step, the second electrode 204 may not only cover the opening of the cavity 210 but also extend and cover a portion of the support layer 206 around the opening 210′ (for example, directly cover the surface of the etch stop layer 205 above the support layer 206). That is, the second electrode 204 may not only completely enclose the cavity 210 but also adjoin the support layer 206. The portion of the second electrode 204 that adjoins the support layer 206 may be a closed loop structure formed by surrounding the opening of the cavity 210 for one turn. In other embodiments of the present disclosure, the second electrode 204 may be coplanar with the edge of the support layer 206.
[0045] After patterning the first electrode layer 202′, the piezoelectric material layer 203′, and the second electrode layer 204′, the shapes of the first electrode 202 and the piezoelectric layer 203 formed may be same as or different from the shape of the second electrode 204; and the top-view shape may be pentagons or other polygons, such as quadrangles, hexagons, heptagons, or octagons. In one embodiment, after the patterning step, the first electrode 202 and the piezoelectric layer 203 may be completely overlapped with a same area, and the area of the second electrode 204 may be greater than the area of the opening of the cavity 210.
[0046] For example, the first electrode layer 202′, the piezoelectric material layer 203′, and the second electrode layer 204′ may be patterned through photolithography and etching processes. Exemplarily, the electrode pattern of the first electrode 202 may be defined by a photolithography process, and the shape of the first electrode 202 may be formed by a dry etching process or a wet etching process. Then, using the first electrode 202 as a mask, the piezoelectric material layer 203′ may be etched using a dry etching process or a wet etching process, as shown in
[0047] Moreover, after patterning the first electrode layer 202′, the piezoelectric material layer 203′, and the second electrode layer 204′ to form the first electrode 202, the piezoelectric layer 203, and the second electrode 204, the method for fabricating the film bulk acoustic resonator provided by the present disclosure may further include forming a passivation layer 207. The passivation layer 207 may cover the first electrode 202, the piezoelectric layer 203, and the second electrode 204, and further cover the support layer 206. Passivation layer openings may be formed in the passivation layer 207 above the support layer 206 and in the passivation layer 207 above the second electrode 204, respectively, where a part of the passivation layer openings may expose the second electrode 204, and another part of the passivation layer openings may expose the second electrode 202. A first soldering pad 208a and a second soldering pad 208b, which are electrically connected to the first electrode 202 and the second electrode 204, may be respectively formed at the passivation layer openings, as shown in
[0048] In the above-mentioned etching steps, the etching manners may include, but may not be limited to, a wet etching technology, an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching process, a reactive ion etching (RIE) process, and the like. The deposition manners may include, but may not be limited to, a chemical vapor deposition process, a magnetron sputtering process, an electrochemical deposition process, an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process, a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) process, and the like.
[0049] The embodiments of the present disclosure also provide a film bulk acoustic resonator, which is fabricated by using the above-mentioned fabrication method of the film bulk acoustic resonator. As shown in
[0053] The cavity 210 may be disposed in the support layer 206 below the overlapped region, along the thickness direction, of the first electrode 202, the piezoelectric layer 203, and the second electrode 204. The second electrode 204 may cover the opening of the cavity 210 and a portion of the support layer 206 around the opening. The portion of the second electrode 204 that adjoins the support layer 206 may a closed loop structure formed by surrounding the opening of the cavity 210 for one turn. In other embodiments of the present disclosure, the second electrode 204 may be coplanar with the edge of the support layer 206.
[0054] The second substrate 300 may be any suitable substrate known to those skilled in the art. For example, the second substrate 300 may be at least one of the materials mentioned below: silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), silicon germanium (SiGe), silicon carbon (SiC), silicon germanium (SiGeC), indium arsenide (InAs), Gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP) or other III/V compound semiconductors. The second substrate 300 may be a multilayer structure composed of such semiconductors; or silicon-on-insulator (SOI), silicon-on-insulator (SSOI), silicon-germanium-on-insulator (S—SiGeOI), silicon germanium-on-insulator (SiGeOI), and germanium-on-insulator (GeOI); or double side polished wafers (DSP), a ceramic substrate such as alumina, a quartz or glass substrate, and the like. In one embodiment, the first electrode 202 and the second electrode 204 may be made of metal molybdenum (Mo), and the piezoelectric layer 203 may be made of aluminum nitride (AlN). The material of the support layer 206 may be, for example, one or a combination of silicon dioxide (SiO.sub.2), silicon nitride (Si.sub.3N.sub.4), aluminum oxide (Al.sub.2O.sub.3) and aluminum nitride (AlN). Preferably, the material of the support layer 206 may be silicon dioxide (SiO.sub.2).
[0055] Optionally, the areas of the first electrode 202 and the piezoelectric layer 203 may be equal and completely overlapped, and the area of the second electrode 204 may be greater than the area of the opening of the cavity 210. The overlapped region, along the thickness direction, of the first electrode 202, the piezoelectric layer 203, and the second electrode 204 located above the cavity 210 may be an active working region (effective working region) of the bulk acoustic resonator. Such arrangement may relatively reduce the dissipation of acoustic wave energy and improve the quality factor of the bulk acoustic resonator.
[0056] The support layer 206 may be bonded to the second substrate 300 by a thermocompression bonding manner or a dry film bonding manner. Using the thermocompression bonding manner, a bonding layer may be disposed on a side of the support layer for bonding with the second substrate by the thermocompression bonding. Using the dry film bonding manner, a dry film layer may be disposed on a side of the second substrate for bonding with the support layer by the dry film bonding.
[0057] Optionally, the etch stop layer 205 may be disposed between the second electrode 204 and the support layer 206. Furthermore, the etch stop layer 205 and the second electrode 204, having a same shape and a same area, may be completely overlapped with each other. The material of the etch stop layer 205 may include, but may not be limited to, silicon nitride (Si.sub.3N.sub.4) and silicon oxynitride (SiON).
[0058] Optionally, the film bulk acoustic resonator may further include the passivation layer 207. The passivation layer 207 may cover the first electrode 202, the piezoelectric layer 203, the second electrode 204, and the support layer 206.
[0059] Optionally, passivation layer openings, different from the cavity 210, may be respectively formed in the passivation layer 207 above the support layer 206 and in the passivation layer 207 above the second electrode 204. The film bulk acoustic resonator may further include at least two soldering pads. The soldering pads, disposed at the passivation layer 207, may be electrically connected to the first electrode 202 and the second electrode 204 respectively through the openings of the passivation layer 207. For example, the first soldering pad 208a may be electrically connected to the first electrode 202, and the second soldering pad 208b may be electrically connected to the second electrode 204. Preferably, the first soldering pad 208a and the second soldering pad 208b may be located on two sides of the cavity 210, respectively.
[0060] From the above-mentioned embodiments, it can be seen that the technical solutions provided by the present disclosure may achieve at least the following beneficial effects.
[0061] The present disclosure provides the film bulk acoustic resonator and its fabrication method. The first electrode layer, the piezoelectric material layer, and the second electrode layer may be sequentially formed on the first substrate. Then, the support layer may be formed on the second electrode layer and the cavity with the top opening may be formed in the support layer, where the cavity passes through the support layer. Next, the second substrate may be bonded with the support layer, and the first substrate may be removed; and the first electrode layer, the piezoelectric material layer, and the second electrode layer may be patterned to form the first electrode, the piezoelectric layer, and the second electrode, such that the overlapped region of the first electrode, the piezoelectric layer, and the second electrode along the thickness direction may be directly above the cavity. The cavity structure of the film bulk acoustic filter may be realized through the etching support layer and the bonding process, which avoids the influence of slight fluctuations between different media caused by the CMP process on the uniformity of the piezoelectric layer and avoids the influence on the performance of the film bulk acoustic wave filter due to incompletely dissolving the sacrificial layer.
[0062] It should be noted that each embodiment in present specification may be described in a related manner, and the same or similar parts between the various embodiments may be referred to each other. Each embodiment may focus on the differences from other embodiments. Particularly, as for the structural embodiments, since it is basically similar to the method embodiments, the description may be relatively simple, and related parts may refer to the partial description of the method embodiments.
[0063] The above-mentioned description may merely the description of preferred embodiments of the present disclosure and may not limit the scope of the present disclosure in any way. Any changes or modifications made by those skilled in the art in the field of the present disclosure according to the above-mentioned description shall fall within the protection scope of the claims.