Silicon on nothing MEMS electromechanical resonator

The very significant growth of the wireless communication industry has spawned tremendous interest in the development of high performance radio frequencies (RF) components. Micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) are good candidates to allow reconfigurable RF functions such as filters, oscillators or antennas. This paper will focus on the MEMS electromechanical resonators, which show interesting performances to replace surface acoustic waves (SAW) filters or quartz reference oscillators, allowing smaller integrated functions with lower power consumption. The resonant frequency depends on the material properties, such as Young’s modulus and density, and on the movable mechanical structure dimensions (beam length defined by photolithography). Thus, it is possible to obtain multi frequencies resonators on a wafer. The resonator performance (frequency, quality factor) strongly depends on the environment, like moisture or pressure, which imply the need for a vacuum package. This paper will present first resonator mechanisms and mechanical behaviors followed by state of the art descriptions with applications and specifications overview. Then MEMS resonator developments at STMicroelectronics including FEM analysis, technological developments and characterization are detailed.