Title :
Solid state RF MEMS resonators in standard CMOS
Author :
Bahr, Bichoy ; Marathe, Radhika ; Wentao Wang ; Weinstein, D.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Massachusetts Inst. of Technol., Cambridge, MA, USA
Abstract :
This paper presents a review of our work in CMOS-MEMS resonators fabricated in Front-End-of-Line (FEOL) processing of standard CMOS technology with no need for post-processing or special packaging. Acoustic resonators composed of Si and SiO2 found in the CMOS stack are demonstrated, confined by Acoustic Bragg Reflectors and sensed using a standard transistor embedded inside the acoustic resonant cavity. The merits of active transistor sensing of MEMS resonators at high frequencies are discussed, leading to the principle of the Resonant Body Transistors (RBTs) described in this work. RBTs realized in IBM´s 32nm SOI process are demonstrated with resonance frequency above 11 GHz and Q~30, spanning a footprint of less than 15 μm2. Finally, thermal stability of <;3 ppm/K is shown for these CMOS-integrated devices. The CMOS-MEMS resonators presented here offer building blocks for RF circuit design which can be integrated seamlessly with supporting circuits for on-chip clocking and signal processing.
Keywords :
CMOS integrated circuits; acoustic resonators; micromechanical resonators; thermal stability; CMOS stack; CMOS-MEMS resonators; CMOS-integrated devices; IBM SOI process; RF circuit design; SiO2; acoustic Bragg reflectors; acoustic resonant cavity; acoustic resonators; active transistor sensing; front-end-of-line processing; on-chip clocking; resonance frequency; resonant body transistors; signal processing; size 32 nm; solid state RF MEMS resonators; standard CMOS technology; standard transistor; thermal stability; Acoustics; CMOS integrated circuits; Field effect transistors; Micromechanical devices; Resonant frequency; Sensors;
Conference_Titel :
ESSCIRC (ESSCIRC), 2013 Proceedings of the
Conference_Location :
Bucharest
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4799-0643-7
DOI :
10.1109/ESSCIRC.2013.6649119