Thin film plate acoustic resonators for integrated microwave power oscillator applications

Two-port film plate acoustic resonators (FPAR) devices operating on the lowest order symmetric Lamb wave mode (S0) in C-oriented AlN membranes on Si were fabricated and tested for their power handling capabilities in a feedback-loop power oscillator circuit. The FPAR was operated at an incident power level of 24 dBm for several weeks without performance degradation. Its flicker noise constant was calculated from close-in phase noise data as R=2.1=10^-36/Hz. The results indicate that IC-compatible S0 FPARs are well suited for integrated microwave oscillators with thermal noise floor (TNF) levels below -175-dBc/Hz.