• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.11 no.11
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• pp.2090-2094
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• 2007

Film bulk acoustic wave resonator(FBAR) technology has attracted a great attention as a promising technology to fabricate the next-generation RF filters mainly because the FBAR technology can be integrated with current Si processing. The RF filters are basically composed of several FBAR devices connected in parallel and in series, and their characteristics depend highly on the FBAR device characteristics. Thus, it is important to design high quality FBAR devices by device or process optimization. This kind of effort may enhance the FBAR device characteristics, eventually leading to FBAR filters of high performance. In this paper, we describe the methods to more effectively improve the resonance characteristics of the FBAR devices.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.88-92
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• 2003

In this paper, the characteristics of the ZnO films deposited on AI bottom electrode and the temperature effects on the ZnO film growth are presented along with the fabrication and their evaluation of the film bulk acoustic wave resonator (FBAR) devices. All the films used in this work were deposited using a radio-frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering technique. Growth characteristics of the ZnO films are shown to have a strong dependence on the deposition temperatures ranged from room temperature to 35$0^{\circ}C$ regardless of the RF power applied for sputtering the ZnO target. In addition, according to the growth characteristics of the distinguishably different micro-crystal structures and the degree of the c-axis preferred orientation, the deposition temperatures can be divided into 3 temperature regions and 2 critical temperatures in-between. Overall, the ZnO films deposited at/below 20$0^{\circ}C$ are seen to have columnar grains with a highly preferred c-axis orientation where the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of X-ray diffraction rocking curve is 14$^{\circ}$. Based on the experimental findings, several FBAR devices were fabricated and measured. As a result, the FBAR devices show return loss of ~19.5dB at resonant frequency of ~2.05GHz.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2003.07c
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• pp.1523-1525
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• 2003

Due to the rapid development of wireless networking system, researches on the communication devices are mainly focus on microwave frequency devices such as filters, resonators, and phase shifters. Among them, Film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) has been paid extensive attentions for their high performance. In this research, ZnO thin films were deposited by RF-magnetron sputtering on Al/$SiO_2$/Si wafer and then crystalline properties and surface morphology were examined. To measure crystalline structure and surface morphology X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) were employed. It was showed that crystalline properties of ZnO thin films were strongly dependant on the deposition conditions. As increasing the deposition temperature and the deposition pressures, the peak intensities of ZnO(002) plane were increased until $300^{\circ}C$, then decreased rapidly. At the sputtering conditions of RF power of 213 W and working pressure of 15 m Torr, ZnO film had excellent c-axis orientation, surface morphology, and adhesion to the substrate. In conclusion we optimized smooth surface with very small grains as well as highly c-axis oriented ZnO film for FBAR applications.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.9-18
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• 2003

Two configurations of Film Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonators with acoustic quater-wave bragg reflector layers are theoretically analyzed using equivalent circuits and the difference of their characteristics are discussed. We compare the characteristics of λ/2 mode to those of ideal FBAR with top and bottom electrode contacting air and the characteristics of λ/4 mode to those of ideal FBAR with top electrode contacting air and bottom electrode clamped. We assume that the piezoelectric film is ZnO, the electrode is A1 and the substrate is Si, ABCD parameters are extracted and input impedance is calculated by converting the equivalent circuit from Mason equivalent circuits to the simplified equivalent circuits that ABCD parameters are extracted possible, From the variation of resonance frequency due to the change of thickness of reflector layers and the variation of electrical Q due to the change of mechanical Q of reflector layers, it is confirmed that the reflector layer just under the bottom electrode have the greatest effect on the varation of resonance frequency and electrical Q. It is shown that the number of reflector layers required for the saturation of electrical Q decreases with the increase of the impedance ratio of reflector layers and electrical Q of λ/2 mode is larger than that of λ/4 mode, Electromechanical coupling factor is independent of the number of layers, The impedance ratio of reflector layers becomes larger as the electromechanical coupling factor becomes larger, The electromechanical coupling factor of the two mode are smaller than those of ideal FBARs because of the trapping of acoustic energy in the reflector layers, The insertion loss of the ladder filter decreases with the increase of the number of reflector layers but the bandwidth is not affected much by the number of reflector layers, As the impedance ratio of reflector layers becomes larger the insertion loss becomes smaller and the bandwidth becomes wider, In our analysis of the two mode, characteristics of λ/2 mode appear to be slightly more favorable than that of λ/4 mode

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.362-370
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• 2010

In this paper, a compact RF Front-end module for Wireless Fidelity(Wi-Fi) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access(WiMAX) applications is realized by low temperature co-fired ceramic(LTCC) technology. The RF Front-end module is composed of three LTCC band-pass filters, a Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator(FBAR) filter, fully embedded matching circuits, an SPDT switch for mode selection, an SPDT switch for Tx/Rx selection, and an SP4T switch for band selection. The parasitic elements of 0.2~0.3 pF are generated by the structure of stacking in the top pad pattern for DC block capacitor of SPDT switch for mode selection. These kinds of parasitic elements break the matching characteristic, and thus, the overall electrical performance of the module is degraded. In order to compensate it, we insert a parallel lumped-element inductor on capacitor pad pattern for DC block, so that we obtain the optimized performance of the RF Front-end module. The fabricated RF front-end module has 12 layers including three inner grounds and it occupies less than $6.0mm{\times}6.0mm{\times}0.728mm$.