Chip Review

MICRO-NANOELECTRONICS DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Advanced RF filters for wireless

communications
Kai Yang1,† , Chenggong He2,† , Jiming Fang1 , Xinhui Cui1 , Haiding Sun1,∗ , Yansong Yang3,∗
& Chengjie Zuo1,2,∗
1 generation (5G) system offering a global internet that connects people
School of Microelectronics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei
230088, China 2 YUNTA Technologies and ANUKI Technologies, Hefei 230088, and devices, enabling smart homes, cloud computing, autonomous vehi-
China 3 Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong
cles, drones, robots and artificial intelligence. Each generation introduces
University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, China
new services and higher data rates, necessitating new technologies and
†
These authors have equal contributions to this work. more electromagnetic spectrum (or bandwidth) to support data commu-
E-mails: [email protected] (Haiding Sun), [email protected] (Yansong Yang), nication. In order to maintain backward compatibility with older genera-
[email protected] (Chengjie Zuo) tions, higher frequencies and more frequency bands of the spectrum have
Cite as: Yang, K. et al. Advanced RF filters for wireless communications. Chip 2, 100058 been pursued by international standardization organizations (e.g., 3GPP5 ,
(2023). IEEE6 ), with an emphasizing on improving spectrum efficiency. This has
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058 led to increased complexity and difficulty in designing radio frequency
(RF) systems, making RF filters a crucial component in RF front-end de-
Received: 5 April 2023 sign. RF filters are electronic devices that allow specific frequency com-
Accepted: 4 July 2023 ponents of a signal to pass through with low loss while greatly suppressing
other frequency components, enhancing the system’s anti-interference ca-
Published online: 7 July 2023
pability and signal-to-noise ratio for better quality communications.
This paper provides a comprehensive review of advanced radio fre- Most filter technologies are based on resonating elements7–11 , such as
quency (RF) filter technologies available in miniature chip or inte- electromagnetic or acoustic resonators. Filter size is usually proportional
grated circuit (IC) form for wireless communication applications. to the wavelength of the corresponding physical wave that propagates in
The RF filter technologies were organized according to the time- the resonator cavity. The advantage of acoustic resonators is that their
line of their introduction, in conjunction with each generation of wavelength (µm level at GHz) is several orders of magnitude smaller than
wireless (cellular) communication standards (1G to 5G). This ap- the electromagnetic wavelength (cm level at GHz in air) for the same op-
proach enabled a clear explanation of the corresponding invention erating frequency, allowing for the miniaturization of acoustic filters into
history, working principles, typical applications and future develop- small chips with an area of less than 1 mm2 . The most common acoustic
ment trends. The article covered commercially successful acoustic filter technology is the surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology which is
filter technologies, including the widely used surface acoustic wave originated from the invention of interdigital transducers12 (IDT) by R. M.
(SAW) and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters, as well as electromag- White at the University of California, Berkeley. Before SAW devices were
netic filter technologies based on low-temperature co-fired ceramic used for direct RF filtering, they played an important role in intermediate
(LTCC) and integrated passive device (IPD). Additionally, emerg- frequency (IF) filtering and signal processing in radar, television (TV) and
ing filter technologies such as IHP-SAW, suspended thin-film lithium frequency control applications13 , 14 . As wireless communication evolves
niobate (LiNbO3 or LN) resonant devices and hybrid were also dis- from 1G to 2G and 3G, the main frequency bands adopted in the standards
cussed. In order to achieve higher performance, smaller form factor range from several hundred MHz to 2 GHz. Simultaneously, mainstream
and lower cost for the wireless communication industry, it is believed photolithography in the early 2000s allowed for fine resolution of a few
that fundamental breakthroughs in materials and fabrication tech- µm for the IDT electrodes. As a result, SAW resonators achieved a decent
niques are necessary for the future development of RF filters. quality factor (Q > 800) and electromechanical coupling coefficient (k2 >
10%) at RF frequencies. Additionally, due to the relatively simple fabri-
Keywords: RF filter, Acoustic wave, Piezoelectric, Electromagnetic, Hy- cation process and low cost, SAW filters and duplexers have been widely
brid utilized in today’s cellphones, especially for 2G and 3G frequency bands,
for example, GSM (900 MHz), PCS (1900 MHz), Band 1 (2100 MHz),
1. INTRODUCTION Band 5 (850 MHz), etc.
The development of the 4th generation (4G) wireless communication,
Wireless communication has become an essential part of our daily lives which is also known as Long Term Evolution (LTE), is primarily driven
and revolutionized the way people live and work1–4 . It allows us to com- by the need to support Internet Protocol (IP) based services in a mobile
municate with each other regardless of time and distance. As illustrated device. Although the voice services remain the fundamental function of a
in Fig. 1, wireless communication has evolved significantly, with the first mobile phone, there is an ever-increasing demand for higher data rates for
generation (1G) system providing only low-quality voice calls and the fifth web browsing, video streaming and file transfer, which pushes the peak

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 1 | The evolution from 1G to 5G.

data rates of mobile systems from Kbit/s for 2G to Mbit/s for 3G and get-
ting to Gbit/s for 4G (Fig. 1). The Shannon-Hartley theorem states that
higher electromagnetic bandwidth is required by higher data rates to sup-
port the information transmission in the presence of noise. Therefore, in
addition to the 1 GHz bands that were extensively used in 2G and 3G, the
frequency bands (electromagnetic spectrum) from 2 to 3 GHz naturally
became the choice for 4G. The 4G LTE standard defined many new bands,
such as Band 2 (1.9 GHz), Band 7 (2.6 GHz), Band 40 (2.3 GHz) and
Band 41 (2.6 GHz). Consequently, the 2 to 3 GHz range quickly became
overcrowded, which was exacerbated by the fact that the unlicensed Wi-Fi
standard also operates in the 2.4 GHz band. To isolate the different bands
and minimize interference, high Q filtering technology became the bottle- Fig. 2 | Advanced RF filters for wireless communications.
neck for 4G phones. At the time, the SAW technology could not work well
above 2 GHz, and as a result, the bulk acoustic wave (BAW) technology
was developed to deliver high Q (> 2000) at high frequencies. The BAW Therefore, in the first phase of 5G deployment, low-temperature co-fired
technology relies on thin film deposition of piezoelectric aluminum nitride ceramic (LTCC) technology20 has become the mainstream filter technol-
(AlN) on a silicon (Si) substrate. The bulk acoustic wave travels and res- ogy which is widely applied in phones. The LTCC technology involves
onates in the vertical direction so that the thin film thickness determines stacking multiple layers of conductor and dielectric to form inductors (L)
the resonant frequency. There are two ways of confining acoustic energy and capacitors (C), which are the two basic electromagnetic components
within the thin film piezoelectric layer: one is to use surface microma- for wideband filter design. In spite of the fact that LC filter design is not
chining or microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) process to suspend new in the microwave field, the LTCC technology delivers a decent quality
the AlN plate at a certain gap from the Si substrate, which is named as factor (inductor Q > 50 @ 1 GHz) in a tiny footprint (area < 1.6 × 0.8
a film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR)15 ; the other is to deposit multiple mm2 ), making it an attractive option for cellphone applications in which
layers of thin films with different acoustic impedance to serve as a Bragg small form factor is a primary concern.
reflector16 , which reflects most of the acoustic energy back into the piezo- However, in order to meet the increasing need of consumers for even
electric AlN plate, known as a solidly mounted resonator (SMR)17 . higher data rates in future augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR)
With respect to 5G new radio (NR)18 , two main characteristics are ob- and metaverse applications21 , 22 , more electromagnetic spectrum and new
served for the frequency band allocation: high operating frequency (> 3 wireless communication standards are currently being formalized, such as
GHz) and wide bandwidth (> 500 MHz). The most common 5G NR bands 5.5G and Wi-Fi 6E/723 . The high-frequency band (3 to 10 GHz) is once
deployed globally are n77 (3.3 to 4.2 GHz) and n79 (4.4 to 5.0 GHz), with agian becoming increasingly crowded, just as the 2 to 3 GHz band dur-
the corresponding bandwidth of 900 MHz and 600 MHz, respectively. ing 4G development. This new scenario demands high frequency, wide
These bandwidths are nearly ten times greater than that of a typical 4G bandwidth and sharp roll-off (high rejection) all in one filtering solution
band, such as Band 2, which exhibits a downlink/uplink bandwidth of 60 for the next phase of 5G evolution, which drives the invention of next-
MHz. Acoustic filter technologies, such as SAW and BAW, have been de- generation emerging filter technologies: LC-acoustic hybrid3 , XBAR24
veloped and optimized for relatively narrower band applications in 2G to and XBAW25 . Along the way, there are also other variants of advanced fil-
4G, especially for frequency-division duplexing (FDD) bands in which the ter technologies which were proposed to compete with each other, includ-
downlink and uplink bands exhibit a narrow gap (e.g., only 20 MHz for ing temperature-compensated SAW (TC-SAW)26 , 27 , incredible high per-
Band 2). Conventional SAW and BAW resonators based on bulk single- formance SAW (IHP-SAW)28 , contour-mode resonator (CMR)29 , cross-
crystal lithium tantalate (LiTaO3 or LT) substrate and thin-film polycrys- sectional mode resonator (XMR)30 and thin film lithium niobate (LiNbO3
talline AlN, do not have sufficient electromechanical coupling coefficient or LN) based Lamb wave resonator31 . Fig. 2 shows the commonly used
(k2 )19 to support filter design that requires 10 times larger bandwidth. RF filter types and their suitable frequency range and bandwidth, all of

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

applied voltage aligns with the frequency (or wavelength) of the periodic
structure of the IDT and reflectors, acoustic wave will be confined be-
tween the two reflectors and therefore a resonator (acoustic wave cavity)
is formed.
The most critical parameter for SAW device design is the center fre-
quency, which is determined by the period of the IDT fingers and the
acoustic velocity36 :
VSAW
f0 = (1)
λ
Fig. 3 | Typical structure of a SAW resonator. where, λ is the wavelength, given by the periodicity of the IDT and VSAW
denotes the acoustic wave velocity. The IDT finger width is usually equal
to a quarter wavelength (λ/4), so the interdigital electrode pitch (p) and
which will be explained and discussed in the current work to present the
the grating period are equal to half of the wavelength (λ/2). The generated
advantages, disadvantages and future directions of these filter technolo-
acoustic wave largely depends on the type of piezoelectric substrate ma-
gies. The following sections are organized according to the timeline when
terials, the orientation of the piezoelectric crystal, the materials, thickness
different filter technologies were introduced alongside each generation of
and geometry dimensions of the metal electrodes37 .
wireless communication standard.
The development and performance enhancement of SAW devices can
be significantly attributed to the evolution of modeling and design the-
2. 2G AND 3G: SAW ories. R. H. Tancrell was the first to propose that each edge of the IDT
electrodes could be treated as an independent δ-function source of acous-
In 1965, R. M. White and F. W. Volmer invented the interdigital transduc- tic energy39 , so that the IDT as a whole can be regarded as a superposi-
ers (IDT)12 , which triggered the widespread application of surface acous- tion of periodic independent wave sources, as shown in Fig. 4a. A refer-
tic wave (SAW) devices. Owing to the advantages of low cost, small size, ence point at the center (x = 0) is assumed for summing the distributed
light weight and high reliability, SAW-based RF filters are widely used in delta function contributions and the summation yields the frequency re-
second-generation (2G) and third-generation (3G) mobile communication sponse of one set of IDTs. The amplitudes of delta sources are assumed
systems32–34 . In the frequency range up to 1 GHz, SAW filters are almost to be constant, but the phase contribution changes for each electrode ac-
exclusively employed. cording to the distance from the reference point. The delta (δ) function
Fig. 3 shows a typical SAW resonator structure, consisting of a bulk model is the simplest model of IDT and has been widely used in SAW de-
piezoelectric substrate with patterned metal electrodes on top. Part of the sign. However, this model cannot account for the effects of reflections in-
metal electrodes is designed as interdigital transducers (IDT), while the side the IDT, which can sometimes severely affect the performance of the
rest is used as reflection grating structures to confine acoustic wave energy device.
within a resonating cavity. The working principle of SAW is illustrated in To address this issue, W. R. Smith proposed equivalent circuit mod-
Fig. 3: when an alternating voltage is applied to the IDT, acoustic wave els40 for IDT. He developed a simplified model for the electric field dis-
is generated and travels along the surface of the piezoelectric substrate in tribution between IDT based on D. A. Berlincourt’s41 work about equiv-
the directions perpendicular to the fingers34 , 35 . When the frequency of the alent circuits for the length expander bar with parallel and perpendicular

Fig. 4 | a, Delta function model (arrows indicate delta function sources). Electric field directions of b, real distribution, c, “cross field” model. Reprinted with permission
from ref.36 . © 2000, Springer. and d, “in-line field” model. Reprinted with permission from ref.38 . © 2014, Institute for Environmental Nanotechnology.

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 5 | a, Schematic of a PCS SAW duplexer including a Ladder-type transmit (Tx) filter and a DMS receive (Rx) filter. b, Frequency response of the SAW duplexer.
Reprinted with permission from ref.63 . © 2003, IEEE.

electric field, as shown in Fig. 4b-d, and used Mason’s equivalent circuit quency division duplex (FDD) became mainstream, RF SAW filters
model42 to describe one pair of IDT fingers. The drawback is that it cannot working at high frequencies near 1 GHz were developed adopting two
account for mechanical wave reflection or energy storage. Another equiv- different circuit topologies for duplexer implementation, as illustrated
alent model is based on the Coupling-of-Modes (COM) theory, which in Fig. 5. One such topology is the double mode SAW (DMS) fil-
takes both surface acoustic waves’ multiple scattering and their genera- ter65 , which utilizes two identical resonant modes acoustically coupled
tion by IDT electrodes into consideration43–47 . The COM equations were in the longitudinal direction, allowing impedance transformation and of-
proposed by C. S. Hartmann48 , M. S. Sandler49 and D. P. Chen44 , and they fering balun functionality for free. The other topology was the Ladder-
gave a simple mathematical form to offer analytical expressions for many type filter66 , which utilizes acoustic resonators to form cascaded series
IDT parameters based on the force and voltage analogy. K. Hashimoto and shunt branches. Fig. 5 shows a PCS SAW duplexer, including a
has composed an excellent book on COM theory used in SAW devices36 . Ladder-type transmit (Tx) filter and a DMS receive (Rx) filter, show-
To extract COM model parameters, it is necessary to analyze the prop- ing ultra-low loss and steep cut-off characteristics. The SAW fabrica-
agation characteristics of surface acoustic wave in the periodic structure tion process is relatively simple and typically involves a single litho-
and determine the stop band boundary of the dispersion curve. Common graphically defined metal layer on top of a bulk single-crystal piezoelec-
extraction methods include the Green’s function50 , effective permittivity tric substrate (LiTaO3 ). Due to their low cost and simplicity of the pro-
for grating51 , the discrete Green function52 as well as the periodic Green cess, SAW RF filters have been dominating the low band applications
function53 . (< 2000 MHz)67 .
With the rapid development of computer technology in recent years, As discussed above, the evolution of wireless communication has
finite/boundary element modeling (FEM/BEM) has emerged as a cru- been driving the industry and academia to seek ways for further increas-
cial numerical calculation method for the accurate analysis of SAW de- ing the operating frequency and bandwidth of SAW devices. To achieve
vices54–59 . It can handle arbitrary materials and crystal cuts, diverse elec- higher frequency operation, one approach is to reduce the line width and
trode shapes, and complex composite structures composed of multiple spacing of the IDT, which are ultimately limited by the resolution of pho-
metal and dielectric layers. However, the FEM method typically must take tolithography available from a SAW foundry. Narrower electrodes nor-
an overwhelmingly large number of degrees of freedom into considera- mally contribute to higher parasitic resistance and lower current or power
tion, which results in high memory usage and long computing time60 , 61 . handling capability, which significantly degrades the resonator or filter
In 2016, J. Koskela et al. proposed the hierarchical cascading technique performance. Therefore, more and more researchers resort to other ap-
(HCT)60 for fast simulation of SAW devices based on the two-dimensional proaches: new substrate materials with higher acoustic velocity68 , higher
(2D) finite element method (FEM). In this approach, each unique elec- electromechanical coupling or high-order resonant modes69 . Years of ef-
trode period was modeled and simulated only once, which could drasti- fort and innovation have promoted the SAW technology to take several big
cally reduce memory consumption and simulation time. Recently, D. Sui steps forward in inventing further around the IDT concept with new thin-
et al. proposed a universal hierarchical cascading technique (HCT) for film materials and structures (thanks to the development of semiconductor
3D periodic modeling, which performed better than other approaches in and MEMS processes), which greatly enhances the filter performance and
quasi-periodic cascading62 . will be discussed in the following sections.
The initial applications of SAW technology were mainly in mili-
tary systems, but these devices failed to achieve high volume produc-
tion. Around 1975, Philips, Plessey and Siemens started mass produc- 3. 4G: TC-SAW AND BAW
tion of SAW intermediate frequency (IF) filters for TV applications.
With the emergence of cellular phones and the prevailing heterodyne 3.1. TC-SAW As shown in Fig. 6, when it came to 4G long-term evolu-
receiver architecture in 2G64 , SAW IF filters have been used for over tion (LTE), more frequency bands were defined in the 2 to 3 GHz range26 ,
a decade in almost every cellular phone. Until the 3G era when fre- which was compounded by the fact that the mainstream Wi-Fi band (2.4

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Fig. 6 | Mobile frequency band allocation in mainland China. Reprinted with permission from ref.70 . © 2015, IEEE.

GHz) had already been there. In one extreme case, the upper edge of Band Another temperature compensation approach involves bonding a
40 (2.3 to 2.4 GHz) coincided with the lower edge of the Wi-Fi band LiTaO3 wafer to a supporting substrate with a low coefficient of ther-
(2.401 to 2.483 GHz) with no transition band, making it almost impossible mal expansion83 . The physical mechanism of the bonding approach is to
to achieve isolation between the two bands. In order to address this issue, use the bulk supporting substrate to suppress the thermal expansion of
4G LTE required sharp roll-off in filter technology, resulting in the need LiTaO3 , which is normally in a thin film form. Therefore, the support-
for high Q and low temperature coefficient of the resonators71–73 . How- ing substrate material must have a smaller thermal expansion coefficient
ever, normal SAW filters at that time exhibited relatively high frequency (TEC) than LiTaO3 and, if possible, a larger Young’s modulus. Sapphire
drift over temperature (–35 to –45 ppm/°C )74 , and they often failed to is an ideal material with a small TEC of about 5 ppm/°C and a very large
meet the stringent specifications of 4G standards75 , 76 . Researchers began Young’s modulus of 470 GPa. The temperature compensation effect of
exploring ways to compensate for temperature on the IDT structure by sapphire bonding has been demonstrated and commercialized in the indus-
developing temperature-compensated SAW (TC-SAW) technology, which try77 , 84 , as shown in Fig. 7b. Silicon is another choice for the supporting
soon became the preferred approach for Japanese filter companies that had substrate85 , 86 due to its good thermal conductivity, which is approximately
already invested heavily in SAW manufacturing infrastructure. 4 times better than that of sapphire and 16 times better than that of quartz.
The TC-SAW technology evolved in two flavors independently26 , 78 : Excellent heat extraction is critical for Tx filter applications. However,
one is to deposit a silicon dioxide (SiO2 ) thin film layer on IDT to realize bonding a supporting substrate cannot realize zero TCF, as can be done by
temperature compensation. The commonly utilized piezoelectric single- the SiO2 approach. Although the utilization of a thinner LiTaO3 layer can
crystal substrate materials for normal SAW exhibit a negative temperature help reduce the TCF, it also comes with spurious responses.
coefficient of frequency (TCF), whereas SiO2 exhibit a positive TCF that Apart from low loss, high rejection and small TCF, high power dura-
can cancel out the negative TCF of the piezoelectric substrate79 and is bility is also desperately required. For SAW devices, submicron-width
readily available from semiconductor processes. Therefore, this approach aluminum (Al) electrodes undergo acoustic migration under alternating
provides the capability of achieving a TCF close to 0 ppm/°C. Fig. 7a stress, leading to device failure at high power87 . Various compositions and
plots the frequency characteristics of a TC-SAW filter that shows little structures, such as Al-Cu/Cu/Al-Cu88 , AlMgCu/Ti/AlMgCu/Ti89 and sin-
drift with the temperature changing from –30 °C to 80 °C. However, since gle crystalline Al90 have been explored to mitigate this migration problem.
amorphous SiO2 is non-piezoelectric80 , this additional layer would de- A research team at Tsinghua University proposed new electrode com-
grade electromechanical coupling, increasing propagation loss and caus- positions of Al/Ti/Cu/Ti91 , Al-0.9wt.%Cu(Al-Cu)/Ti/Cu/Ti92 , etc., which
ing spurious resonant modes. To mitigate the spurious modes in TC-SAW, greatly improved the SAW filter power durability up to 34.5 dBm. Despite
the Panasonic research team proposed two techniques: selectively remov- the advancement of SAW and TC-SAW technologies, it is still difficult
ing (or patterning) the top SiO2 film for confining the SAW energy in the to deliver high Q and high power durability in the frequency range from
active IDT region and suppressing transverse-mode spurious responses81 ; 2 to 10 GHz. This is also the reason that researchers (Hewlett-Packard
controlling the cross-sectional shape of the SiO2 /electrode structure Laboratories and Infineon Technologies) start to look into bulk acoustic
to suppress the Rayleigh-mode spurious responses82 , as illustrated in wave (BAW) technologies for the commercial solution of sharp roll-off
Fig. 8. RF filters, as required by the 2 to 3 GHz bands in 4G.

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Fig. 7 | Two options for TC-SAW implementation. a, Deposited SiO2 /IDT/LiTaO3 structure and the corresponding filter frequency characteristics at different temper-
atures73 . b, Bonded LiTaO3 /sapphire structure and SAW duplexer frequency characteristics based on different substrates77 . Reprinted with permission from refs.73 , 77 . ©
2004, IEEE.

Fig. 8 | a, Top and cross-sectional views of the selectively removing SiO2 technique81 . b, Cross-sectional view of the SiO2 /electrode shape control technique82 . Reprinted
with permission from refs.81 , 82 . © 2010, 2011, IEEE.

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Fig. 9 | Cross-sectional drawing of FBAR device structures: a, membrane-type FBAR and b, airgap-type FBAR.

Fig. 10 | a, Electric displacement and polarization in an FBAR resonator. Reprinted with permission from ref.105 . © 2008, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. b,
Deformation of the crystal structure when electric field is applied in the c-axis. Reprinted with permission from ref.106 . © 2001, Avagotech. c, The direction of electrical
field and acoustic wave propagation in an FBAR resonator. d, Typical frequency response of an FBAR resonator.

3.2. BAW (ZnO) as the piezoelectric layer material, and metal gold (Au) and Tita-
nium (Ti) as the top and bottom electrode materials. Later, C. Vale et al.98
3.2.1. FBAR The film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) is a widely used and R. Ruby et al.15 reported FBAR devices operating in the GHz range
bulk acoustic wave (BAW) device, which is known for its high operat- based on ZnO and aluminum nitride (AlN) in 1990 and 1994, respec-
ing frequency, high Q and excellent power durability93 . There are two tively, both of which were membrane-type FBAR devices. In particular,
ways to fabricate an FBAR resonator: membrane-type and airgap-type94 , R. Ruby et al.15 reported FBAR resonators with Q values over 1000 and
which corresponds to bulk15 and surface95 , 96 micromachining processes, resonant frequencies in the range of 1.5 to 7.5 GHz, which made it fea-
respectively (Fig. 9). The membrane-type FBAR is realized by etch- sible and attractive to commercialize FBAR devices. As a result, FBAR
ing the supporting substrate (typically Si) from the backside until the filters and duplexers were successfully commercialized by this team from
etching stops at the bottom electrode, so as to form a suspended elec- Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, which later became Agilent, Avago and
trode/piezoelectric/electrode sandwich structure which can freely vibrate now Broadcom. The big commercial success also attracted other semi-
in the vertical direction. As for airgap-type FBAR, a sacrificial layer is conductor companies to invest in this MEMS filter technology, including
first formed before depositing the electrode/piezoelectric/electrode thin TAIYO YUDEN99 , 100 , Samsung101 , 102 and STMicroelectronics103 , 104 .
film layers and later is etched away (released) to form the airgap that al- FBAR resonator can be analyzed with a simplified three-layer model,
lows the sandwich structure to vibrate freely. which primarily comprises a piezoelectric thin film sandwiched between
In 1980, the first FBAR resonator was proposed by K. M. Lakin et al.97 upper and bottom electrodes. As shown in Fig. 10a, applying an alternat-
with a detailed theoretical derivation. Five years later, in 1985, H. Satoh ing voltage to the top and bottom electrodes could generate an electric
et al.95 proposed the first airgap-type FBAR device, which used zinc oxide field (E), electric displacement (D) and polarization (P) within the pol-

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teristics of FBAR exhibit infinite pairs of resonant points, and each pair
is composed of a series resonant frequency ( fs ) and a parallel resonant
frequency ( f p ).
To characterize the electrical properties of piezoelectric bodies, W.
P. Mason proposed the traditional piezoelectric theory in 194842 , which
included the Mason equivalent circuit model, as shown in Fig. 11. The
Mason model can be utilized to describe not only piezoelectric materials
but also non-piezo materials. The multi-layer stacking of the piezoelec-
tric thin film and two metal electrode layers could be accounted for by
cascading multiple sections of transmission line in the equivalent circuit
model. Each section of the transmission line includes two acoustic ports:
one on the left and the other on the right, while the section for the piezo-
electric layer exhibits an additional electrical port at the bottom, with the
transformer representing energy conversion between acoustic and electri-
cal domains.
Fig. 11 | The Mason equivalent circuit model. Reprinted with permission from Although the Mason model could accurately describe the electrical
ref.42 . © 1948, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc. behavior of FBAR, the model contains transformers and negative capaci-
tors, which are inconvenient for circuit-level design or simulation. In order
to simplify the analysis when adopting FBAR as a lumped component, the
Butterworth-Van Dyke (BVD) model107 was developed to mainly describe
the electrical behavior around the fundamental resonant frequency, while
the higher-order harmonics were neglected. In real-world applications, an
FBAR resonator suffers from not only mechanical/acoustic loss but also
dielectric loss and resistive loss from the Si substrate and metal electrodes,
thus J. D. Larson III et al. proposed a modified BVD (MBVD) model19
during the commercialization of FBAR duplexers, which becomes the
most used equivalent circuit model for SAW and BAW resonators for RF
Fig. 12 | MBVD equivalent circuit model for FBAR. Reprinted with permission filter design, as shown in Fig. 12.
from ref.19 . © 2000, IEEE. Thanks to the excellent material properties such as high acoustic ve-
locity, AlN-based FBAR resonators offer high Q (> 2000) at high fre-
quency (> 2 GHz)108 , low temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF)109
ing axis of the crystallographic structure. This axis is also known as the and process compatibility with complementary metal oxide semiconduc-
c-axis, as illustrated in Fig. 10b. Due to the reverse piezoelectric effect, tor (CMOS) active circuits109 . At the time, it was difficult for SAW filters
mechanical deformation arises along the z direction (c-axis) in the form to deliver sufficient performance at high frequencies above 1.5 GHz, es-
of strain or an acoustic wave, as shown in Fig. 10c. The upper surface pecially when considering the standard bands (Band 1, Band 2, Band 3,
of the top electrode and the lower surface of the bottom electrode serve Band 40, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz, etc.) are extremely crowded in the sub-3 GHz
as two boundary conditions, where the sandwich structure abuts air. Con- frequency range, the FBAR technology achieved prominent commercial
sequently, the acoustic wave encounters a significant acoustic impedance success in the 4G era due to its high Q and therefore sharp roll-off at the
mismatch and gets reflected. In this way, the acoustic wave bounces back transition edge from filter pass band to stop band110 , as is shown in Fig. 13.
and forth between the two surfaces, transforming the structure into a res- In order to cope with even higher frequencies (> 3 GHz and up to mil-
onator (acoustic cavity) with the majority of the acoustic wave energy limeter wave) and significantly wider bandwidth (> 500 MHz) required by
confined within the mechanically vibrating body itself. Fig. 10d shows a 5G, AlN-based FBAR manifests some intrinsic deficiencies, for example,
typical frequency response of an FBAR resonator. The electrical charac- its fractional bandwidth (FBW) is limited by the electromechanical cou-

Fig. 13 | a, Measured Band 25 duplexer S-parameters. b, Wideband response of the FBAR duplexer S-parameters. Reprinted with permission from ref.110 . © 2019, IEEE.

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 14 | Cross-section drawing for a, sample 1: two-step AlN deposition; b, sample 2: one-step PVD AlN film deposition; c, the fabricated FBAR resonator. Reprinted
with permission from ref.114 . © 2022, IEEE.

pling coefficient (∼7% for sputter-deposited AlN FBAR resonators111 ), Table 1 | State of the art results for FBAR resonators.
a parameter primarily determined by material properties and hard to be Ref. Piezo Film Type f (GHz) Q k2 (%)
improved by design or process.
120 900 nm Al0.7 Sc0.3 N FBAR 2.93 210 8.1
One way to achieve higher frequency operation is to thin down the 112 120 nm AlN FBAR 24.7 285 6.01
piezoelectric film. It is reported that an airgap-type FBAR can work up to 113 140 nm AlN OBAR 33 110 1.7
24 GHz112 , accounting for the fact that the thickness of AlN is only 120 124 1.2 um Al0.91 Sc0.09 N FBAR 2.2339 513 9.53
nm. The resonant frequency, Q value at series resonant frequency (Qs ), 124 1.2 um Al0.85 Sc0.15 N FBAR 2.1522 348 12
Q value at parallel resonant frequency (Qp ) and electromechanical cou- 122 600 nm X-cut LN FBAR 2.986 250 39.2
pling coefficient (k2 ) were 24.7 GHz, 285, 291 and 6.01%, respectively. 121 600 nm Y+163°-cut LN FBAR 2.50 350 29.4
The other way is to utilize higher-order overtone modes. An overmoded 123 740 nm X-cut LT FBAR 1.58 400 17.4
125
bulk acoustic resonator (OBAR) was demonstrated through the fabrica- 410 nm Z-cut LN FBAR 2.9 73 5.8
24 400 nm Z-cut LN XBAR 4.8 300 25
tion of a Pt-AlN-Al sandwich structure (70 nm, 140 nm and 90 nm thick-
ness, respectively) with the k2 of 1.7% and the Qs of 110 at 33 GHz113 .
When the AlN layer thickness is down to the 100 nm range, the crys-
tallinity of the deposited thin films tends to be more and more important
and confined in the resonator body itself. An alternative way to serve the
for the piezoelectric performance109 . Researchers have been trying to real-
same purpose is to use a mechanical Bragg reflector126 , such a BAW de-
ize single-crystal piezoelectric films: the so-called XBAW25 and Two-Step
vice is called the solidly mounted resonator (SMR). As early as 1965, W.
Method114 have been reported. In 2022, X. Yi et al. fabricated high-quality
E. Newell127 proposed a method to solidly mount a piezoelectric resonator
AlN films on Si substrate adopting a mix of metal-organic chemical vapor
on a substrate with the adoption of cascaded quarter-wavelength acoustic
deposition (MOCVD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD, i.e., sputter-
transmission lines without degrading the quality factor too much. The au-
ing) methods, as shown in Fig. 14, which resulted in a small value of 0.68°
thor demonstrated its feasibility at low frequencies and predicted that this
for the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the X-ray rocking curve.
technique would be extensively useful for thin film structures operating at
In comparison, the FWHM for sputtered AlN films on Si substrate is gen-
high frequencies. In 1994, R. J. Weber128 applied for a patent claiming an
erally above 1.4°. The XBAW will be explained in detail in the following
acoustic isolator disposed between the resonator and the substrate, so that
chapters.
the thin film resonator sees an equivalent impedance close to air. In 1995,
To increase the electromechanical coupling coefficient (k2 ) of AlN
K. M. Lakin et al.94 published a paper that used the term SMR for the first
resonators, scandium (Sc) doping to form AlScN has been proven to be
time.
an effective invention115–117 . It is demonstrated that d33 up to 5 times
SMR can exhibit two kinds of configurations: λ/2 mode129–133 and λ/4
larger than pure AlN can be achieved due to enhanced piezoelectric re-
mode134 , 135 , as shown in Fig. 15. For the λ/2 mode configuration, the top
sponse in Sc-doped AlN118 , resulting in a significant improvement in k2
layer of the Bragg reflector shows low acoustic impedance so that the bot-
(2.6 times higher than AlN for Sc0.35 Al0.65 N)119 . The highest k2 reported
tom surface of the piezoelectric film is traction-free, and therefore the
to date for AlScN FBAR resonators is 18.1% by J. Wang et al. in 2020120 .
piezoelectric film corresponds to a half-wave plate (in the z direction) at
This is also the first demonstration of frequency tuning and intrinsic polar-
the fundamental resonant frequency. As for the λ/4 mode configuration,
ization switching of FBAR resonators, based on sputtered AlScN piezo-
the top layer of the Bragg reflector should exhibit high acoustic impedance
electric thin films with 30% doping concentration. Besides, researchers
so that the bottom surface of the piezoelectric film is almost clamped, and
also resorted to other piezoelectric materials, out of which lithium niobate
therefore the piezoelectric film corresponds to a quarter-wave plate at the
(LiNbO3 or LN) stands out as a promising alternative for BAW appli-
fundamental resonant frequency. For the two different SMR configura-
cations. LN-based FBAR exhibits higher k2 than AlN, which is simply
tions, more Bragg reflector layers will contribute to an increase in the Q
ascribed to the fact that LN exhibits larger and more piezoelectric coef-
value, which will ultimately saturate, while k2 is less affected by the num-
ficients available from different crystal orientations, for example, k2 can
ber of reflector layers. The Q and k2 of the λ/4 mode configuration are
be 39.2% for X-cut LN121 , 29.4% for Y+163°-cut LN122 and 17.4% for
theoretically lower than those of the λ/2 mode configuration, while the λ/4
X-cut LiTaO3 123 . State-of-the-art results of recent FBAR resonators based
mode configuration is endowed with the advantage of thinner piezoelectric
on different materials are summarized in Table 1.
film thickness134 .
Infineon Technologies (R. Aigner et al.) started volume manufac-
3.2.2. SMR The essence of the air cavity underneath the FBAR sandwich turing of SMR filters for GSM mobile handset applications in mid-
structure is to make sure that there is a large acoustic impedance mis- 200217 , 136 , 137 . The Bragg reflector includes three pairs of tungsten and
match at the interface, so that the maximum acoustic energy is reflected oxide layers, which achieves an excellent ratio of acoustic impedance

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 15 | Two different SMR configurations. a, λ/2 mode configuration. b, λ/4 mode configuration. Reprinted with permission from ref.134 . © 2000, Japan Society of
Applied Physics.

Fig. 16 | Multi-CMP SMR device. a, Cross-sectional structure of the resonator139 . b, SEM image of a Bragg reflector140 . Reprinted with permission from refs.139 , 140 .
© 2009, 2015, IEEE.

(∼7) and very high reflectivity. Since tungsten is metal and plays the func- filter chips (working at different frequencies) that are separately manufac-
tion of avoiding parasitic electromagnetic coupling between neighboring tured and packaged143 . To reduce the overall complexity and area of such
resonators, the multi-layer reflector has to be patterned by a novel process filter banks, researchers started to look for technologies that could enable
called “Multi-CMP”138 . Only one lithography step is required to pattern all multiple frequencies of operation on the same chip, and the contour-mode
layers at once, and the structure of the Multi-CMP SMR device is shown resonator (CMR) technology29 has received a lot of attention for this pur-
in Fig. 16. pose. Although both FBAR/SMR and CMR technologies have the same
In 2017, Qorvo introduced an SMR filter that can handle 5 W of RF layer stack: metal-piezoelectric thin film-metal, in the case of CMR, the
average input power, with peaks up to 40 W, which verifies the excellent transverse piezoelectric coefficient (d31 ) is utilized to excite a mechanical
high power handling capability of SMR for base station applications141 . vibration in the lateral (in plane) direction, while the voltage is applied
The SMR filter is optimized for 2575 to 2635 MHz (a sub-band of Band in the vertical (z) direction. In comparison, the longitudinal piezoelectric
41), and it has a small size of 5 × 5 × 1 mm3 , which is 90% smaller than coefficient (d33 ) is primarily the mechanism responsible for FBAR/SMR
that of the traditional ceramic filters used in base stations. operation: vibration and voltage both in the vertical (z) direction. The
In 2022, A. Tag and M. Schaefer et al. from Qorvo reported a new resonant frequency of CMR is determined by the lateral dimensions of
generation of SMR-type BAW technology142 , as shown in Fig. 17a, which the resonator body, and therefore multiple frequencies can be enabled
supports the frequency range from 1 to 8 GHz, covering the 5G NR and on the same chip or wafer. After years of researches, a variety of piezo-
Wi-Fi 6E frequency bands. They outlined five key points in the future electric materials have been tried to implement CMR devices, including
development of BAW technology, including reduced die size of filters, AlN144–146 , zinc oxide (ZnO)147–149 , lead zirconate titanate (PZT)150–152 ,
support of higher frequencies, much wider fractional bandwidth (BW), lithium niobate (LiNbO3 or LN)153 , 154 and recently scandium-doped AlN
higher power handling and improved insertion loss (IL) and rejection. (AlScN)155–157 as well.
Fig. 17b-c show that this new generation of Sc-doped SMR can simul- Researches on CMR type of devices were started in 1941, when G.
taneously reduce the device size by 50% , while improving the TCF by Builder et al.158 studied principal contour-mode responses in Y-cut quartz
50% and Q value by 100%. The demonstrated n75/n76 filter shows a plates. Later in 1979, J. Hermann et al.159 proposed a computer proce-
performance improvement of 1.2 dB at both band edges, as illustrated in dure to determine the frequency and piezoelectric coupling of rectangular
Fig. 17d. contour mode resonators of any crystallographic orientation. G. Piazza
et al.29 , 160 published a series of papers on CMR resonators based on re-
3.2.3. CMR As has been explained, the resonant frequency of FBAR or leased AlN thin films from 2004 to 2006, which laid out the foundation
SMR resonator is determined by the total thickness of the metal-piezo- for extensive researches on CMR-type devices implemented by more ad-
metal thin film layer stack. And from the manufacturing point of view, vanced MEMS processes. The in-plane shape can be rectangular, circular,
only one frequency of operation can be obtained on the same wafer or chip ring, etc., as shown in Fig. 1829 . Teams from all over the world including
with a fixed layer stack. However, in 3G and 4G applications, a cellphone G. Piazza et al.145 , 161–163 , V. Yantchev et al.164 , 165 and R. Olsson et al.166 , 167
usually has to support more than 10 bands, which requires more than 10 have made significant contributions to this field, which also inspired the

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 17 | Qorvo’s new generation of SMR-type BAW technology. a, Cross-section drawing of an SMR. b, TCF improvement of over 50%. c, 100% improvement on
Bode Q. d, 1.2 dB improvement at both band edges for n75/n76 filter. Reprinted with permission from ref.142 . © 2022, IEEE.

Fig. 18 | Three different designs of contour-mode resonators (CMR). a, Rectangular plate. b, Circular ring. c, Square-shaped ring. Reprinted with permission from
ref.29 . © 2006, IEEE.

later researches on Lamb wave devices based on suspended single-crystal Taking rectangular plate CMR as an example, its resonant frequency
LiNbO3 thin films, as will be discussed in the following chapters. can be expressed as29 , 173 :
Although the electrode configuration of CMR is similar to interdigital ⎧ 
transducers (IDT) in SAW, the CMR fabrication process offers the pos- ⎨ 1 Ep
f0 = 2L  Eρ (2)
sibility of placing electrodes on the bottom surface of the piezoelectric ⎩ 1 p
2W ρ
thin film. In earlier researches, CMR can be mainly categorized into two
electrode configurations: thickness field excitation (TFE)168 , 169 and lateral where, E p represents the equivalent Young’s modulus of the metal-piezo-
field excitation (LFE)161 , 170 , 171 , which are shown in Fig. 19a and b. The metal layer stack, ρ is the equivalent density and L(W) denotes the
TFE configuration allows to obtain higher electromechanical coupling co- length (width) of the rectangular plate depending on which of the length-
efficient (k2 ) by utilizing electric field in both thickness and lateral direc- extensional or width-extensional mode we look at. As can be seen, the
tions at the same time, while its fabrication process is more complicated: resonant frequency of CMR can be easily set by lateral dimensions (i.e.,
at least three lithographic masks are required and there is misalignment layout design), which makes single-chip multiple frequencies available.
issue between top and bottom electrodes. For LFE devices, k2 is sacri- This also comes with an intrinsic bottleneck for CMR: the electromechan-
ficed to some extent in favor of a simpler fabrication process and there ical coupling coefficient (k2 ) is below 3%, which is much lower than that
are interdigitated electrodes only on the top surface of the piezoelectric of FBAR/SMR (typically ∼7%)174 , simply because the piezoelectric co-
thin film, so that the applied electric field is primarily distributed laterally efficient d31 is less than half of d33 for AlN.
in the resonator body. Another possible CMR configuration172 is shown
in Fig. 19c, which looks like LFE but with a floating bottom electrode.
The expected k2 lies between LFE and TFE, and this configuration fea- 3.2.4. XMR As part of the efforts to enhance the electromechanical cou-
tures better piezoelectric thin film deposition due to a single flat bottom pling coefficient (k2 ) of both CMR and FBAR/SMR for future wideband
electrode when compared with TFE. filter applications, researchers started to investigate the vibration mode

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 19 | Cross-section drawing of AlN-based LFE and TFE CMR devices. a, LFE AlN resonator161 . b, TFE AlN resonator168 . c, LFE AlN resonator with a floating
bottom electrode172 . Reprinted with permission from refs.161 , 168 , 172 . © 2010, 2017, IEEE.

Fig. 20 | Mode shape difference between FBAR, CMR and XMR. Reprinted with permission from ref.30 . © 2012, IEEE.

shapes that could combine the effect of two or more piezoelectric coeffi- ing thickness mode resonator (LCAT)179 ; the second includes the two-
cients. Traditionally in CMR or FBAR/SMR design, attention has always dimensional-mode resonator (2DMR)180 , couple bulk acoustic resonator
been focused on the geometrical dimensions (layout design) of the res- (CBAR)181 and two dimensional resonant rods (2DRR)182 . The COR ex-
onator when looking at it from a top view. C. Zuo et al.30 proposed a new ploits the multimodal excitation of two higher-order Lamb waves (2nd and
approach to design the mode shape in the cross-sectional view, where the 3rd order asymmetrical Lamb waves) in a suspended thin-film AlN plate to
d33 and d31 piezoelectric coefficients could be coherently combined to ex- transduce a 2D vibration mode. The difference between CLMR and LCAT
cite a two-dimensional (2D) mode that achieves higher k2 than either CMR is the ratio of the AlN film thickness (tAlN ) to the electrode pitch (pele ). For
or FBAR/SMR, as shown in Fig. 20. This kind of XMR provides effective an ideal CLMR, the ratio is supposed to be 1, but for LCAT, it is around
leverage from the design side to improve resonator performance without 0.5. In 2022, X. Zhao et al. reported an AlScN based two-dimensional
changing the piezoelectric material, which is still under development by resonant rods resonator (2DRR), with a high Sc doping concentration of
several research teams over the world175–177 . 24%, exhibiting a record high k2 of 23.9% at 5 GHz183 .
There are two electrode configurations under the XMR concept: the The main difference between the two configurations is the way how
first includes the so-called combined overtone resonator (COR)178 , cross- electrical signals are applied to the electrodes. For the first configuration,
sectional lame mode resonator (CLMR)177 and laterally coupled alternat- signals of opposite polarities are applied to the adjacent interdigitated

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 21 | Comparison between different electrode configurations of XMR.

electrodes, and signals with opposite polarities are also applied to the conductor, low dielectric loss at high frequencies and good thermal sta-
electrodes on the bottom side of the piezoelectric layer, facing the ones bility189 . LTCC has achieved rapid growth in the wireless communication
on top; while for the second configuration, signals of the same polarity industry: cellular phones (0.5 to 3 GHz), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (2.4 and 5
are applied to the adjacent interdigitated electrodes, but signals of oppo- GHz), the Global Positioning System (GPS, 1.5 GHz), broadband access
site polarity are applied to all of the electrodes on the bottom174 . In order connection systems (5.8 to 40 GHz), etc. LTCC can not only be used as
to illustrate the variations, the electrode configurations of different XMRs standalone filters, moreover, it can serve as a supporting substrate for a
are summarized in Fig. 21. multi-component RF module in which integrated circuit (IC) chips and
discrete surface mount components can be wire-bonded or soldered on
4. 5G: LTCC AND IPD top, as illustrated in Fig. 23.
There are mianly two different circuit configurations for designing
The 5G new radio (NR) bands (n77, n78 and n79) are defined with signif- LTCC filters. The popular approach in the early days was to fold dis-
icantly larger bandwidth (10×) when compared with 3G/4G bands. Con- tributed elements, such as microstrip transmission lines, coupled lines and
ventional acoustic filters (either SAW or BAW) are unable to cover such electromagnetic resonators into multi-layer 3D LTCC structures. The re-
wide bandwidth, so electromagnetic inductor and capacitor (LC) based cently developed more advanced design method is to construct lumped
filters naturally become the solution in the beginning phase of 5G deploy- elements, including metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors and spiral in-
ment. Although LC filters cannot provide sharp roll-off, which is mainly ductors, in a very compact 3D-stacking form and use through holes (vias)
ascribed to the fact that inductors and capacitors at this frequency (3 to 7 to connect the elements together. The distributed design is more suitable
GHz) have limited Q (< 300) as compared with acoustic resonators (Q > for higher frequencies (> 30 GHz, i.e., millimeter waves), for which the
1000 @ 1 to 3 GHz), at least they can offer wide passband (> 500 MHz) electromagnetic wavelength is relatively small and therefore the compo-
with low insertion loss (< 2 dB) as required by the 5G standards. nent size can be in the millimeter range. However, for cellular bands (1G
LTCC and IPD are the two major LC filter technologies that are widely to 5G: 0.5 to 5 GHz), it is ubiquitous to design lumped inductors and ca-
adopted in today’s 5G systems. Due to its great thermo-mechanical and pacitors (LC) to realize filters, diplexers and couplers in a miniaturized
electrical properties, ceramics have been used for more than 60 years for package (e.g., 1.6 × 0.8 mm2 ), tens of which are commonly used in to-
harsh environment applications such as aerospace, military, radar, auto- day’s 5G smartphones.
motive and other applications. LTCC is such a ceramic technology that en- LTCC190–193 filter has demonstrated its cost performance in 5G ap-
ables multiple layers of conductors and dielectrics stacked on each other, plications, however, it is also faced with two intrinsic deficiencies going
for which the firing temperature is relatively low (< 1000 °C )184 . The forward. Due to the relatively old process technology of printing and lam-
multiple layers of conductors and dielectrics are adopted to design embed- inating, it tends to be more difficult to improve the uniformity in line
ded inductors and capacitors within the same substrate or device. Man- width/spacing and film thickness, which results in lower manufacturing
ufacturing an LTCC multi-layer circuit involves many steps of printing, yield when further shrinking the device size. LTCC technology relies on
laminating, firing, etc., which is a relatively old process as illustrated in 3D stacking of multiple layers for high performance filter design, which
Fig. 22185 . makes the device thickness relatively large (0.65 to 1 mm). Oftentimes,
The history of LTCC dates back to the 1980s when Hughes and filter components need to be integrated into a system-in-package (SiP)
DuPont first developed the technology for military applications186 . In RF module, and in order to make the module thin enough for going into
1985, M. Sagawa came up with the idea of designing an LTCC filter187 . a smartphone, the filter package is generally required to be thinner than
A multi-layer LTCC technology enables RF modules to be reduced in size 0.5 mm or even 0.35 mm. These two reasons drive researchers and the
dramatically by taking advantage of the three dimensional (3D) flexibil- industry to look for next-generation LC filter technologies, and this is
ity188 , and in addition, the LTCC technology can also offer other features why the integrated passive device (IPD) technology was developed with
which are ideal for multi-chip module packages, such as low resistivity semiconductor-level process control and small device height.

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 22 | Process flow of LTCC. Reprinted with permission from ref.185 . © 2023, University of Arkansas.

inductor Q(Qmax ) larger than 20 at GHz frequencies by adopting exotic

substrates, like high-resistivity silicon (HRS), sapphire and quartz195 , 196 ,
or even fabricating MEMS structures to suspend inductor coils above sub-
strate197 . Fig. 24 shows a typical process flow of IPD.
In terms of capacitors for RF application, IPD shows a natural advan-
tage over LTCC, simply because it is based on thin film deposition instead
of multi-layer ceramic sheet lamination199 and the capacitance density in
IPD is much higher than that in LTCC. Especially for higher frequencies
above 3 GHz as required by 5G, higher capacitance density means smaller
capacitor area and therefore less parasitic resistance and inductance com-
ing from interconnects, which makes IPD thin film based MIM capacitors
intrinsically exhibit higher Q and resonant frequency. In consideration of
the better uniformity, smaller package height and higher performance, IPD
stands out as a very promising technology for wide-bandwidth, low-loss
and small-size filtering solutions at frequencies above 3 GHz for 5G and
future wireless communications3 .
The wafer substrate material is a critical factor that determines the
performance of IPD filter. Compared with silicon IPD201 , 204 , glass IPD202
Fig. 23 | Schematic view showing an LTCC module with multiple embedded
is an alternative solution that provides superior RF performance due to
components. Reprinted with permission from ref.190 . © 2015, IEEE.
the higher resistivity and lower dielectric constant of glass. For GaAs
IPD203 , 205 , 206 , it is endowed with the advantage of being able to be inte-
grated with active circuits on the same chip. Typical LTCC and IPD filter
IPD technology dates back to 1967194 , at that time tantalum, tantalum examples are given in Fig. 25. Although they have been widely adopted
pentoxide and nichrome-gold were used to fabricate resistors, capacitors in the first phase of 5G, it can be easily seen from the electrical responses
and inductors on an integrated circuit, respectively. The quality factor (Q) that they cannot deliver sharp roll-off due to the limited Q (< 300), which
was reported to be about 15 at 50 MHz for a 50 pF capacitor, while the in- would become an issue for future co-existence scenarios between 5G,
ductor Q was measured between 15 and 20 at 10 MHz for 1 µH occupying 5.5G, Wi-Fi 7, etc. Therefore, some emerging filter technologies are pro-
0.35 inches square. Until the late 1990s, researchers were able to achieve posed, as shown in Fig. 26.

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 24 | Process flow of IPD. Reprinted with permission from ref.198 . © 2015, Elsevier. B. V.

5. EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES layer and achieve higher Q than normal SAW devices. Murata pro-
posed a solidly mounted thin-film SAW device called the incredible-high-
5.1. Solidly mounted thin-film SAW devices In the past decade, further performance (IHP) SAW featuring 4 times enhancement in Q (∼4000)28 .
innovation on acoustic resonators/filters has been achieved by the devel- As shown in Fig. 27, a submicron thin film of LiTaO3 is bonded on a multi-
opment of single-crystal thin film transfer and heterogeneous integration layered substrate to improve acoustic energy confinement, while SiO2 is
techniques. As a powerful supplement to epitaxial growth techniques (e.g., used in the substrate to reduce the temperature coefficient of frequency
molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), MOCVD, PVD and magnetron sputter- (TCF). In addition, the IHP-SAW technology also enables modes with
ing), heterogeneous integration can transfer and bond single-crystal piezo- higher acoustic velocity213 , which pushes the operating frequency of SAW
electric materials (e.g., LiTaO3 and lithium niobate) to a variety of sub- into the 5 GHz range.
strates for addressing the limitations in traditional SAW devices208–212 . Instead of adopting Si substrate in IHP-SAW, researchers also tried to
The layer transfer technique provides the possibility of selecting utilize quartz in the hetero acoustic layer (HAL) configuration, which is
proper materials (layer stack) underneath the piezoelectric single-crystal mainly ascribed to the fact that quartz substrate exhibits high acoustic ve-
thin film for different purposes. The layer stack can be engineered as locity and positive TCF214 . This quartz-based HAL-SAW (LT-on-quartz)
in SMR devices to confine acoustic energy into the top piezoelectric also achieved 1.2 times bandwidth (BW: 5%) and 6.4 times in Bode-Q

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 25 | a, LTCC, Reprinted with permission from ref.200 . © 2023, KYOCERA AVX. b, Si IPD201 . c, Glass IPD202 , Reprinted with permission from refs.201 , 202 . © 2018,
2020, IEEE. d, GaAs IPD, Reprinted with permission from ref.203 . © 2020, The Chinese Institute of Electronics.

(∼3000), when compared with a reference normal SAW resonator. In ad- on-SiC, when considering from large-scale manufacturing and lower cost,
dition to submicron thin-film LT, 5 up to 20-µm thick LT films were in- Si has to be considered as the substrate in LN based thin-film SAW216 .
vestigated to be bonded on silicon substrates (LT-on-Si), and especially the This has been carefully studied217 : a thin layer of 400-nm amorphous Si
LT layer was apodized (roughened) in thickness (a concept borrowed from was inserted between the LN piezoelectric layer and the crystalline Si sub-
the apodization of FBAR resonators via non-regular polygons) so that un- strate, so as to minimize the parasitic surface conduction (PSC) effect and
wanted high-Q spurious modes got “smeared” out by random variations also spurious acoustic modes, as shown in Fig. 29b. The LN-on-Si SAW
in height determined by the top to bottom LT thickness, as illustrated in achieved a high k2 of 22.8% and a Q of 1208 at 1.6 GHz, which is not too
Fig. 2886 . far away from the LN-on-SiC case.
In addition to LT, thin-film LiNbO3 , which is featured with higher
piezoelectric coefficients, was also studied in the solidly mounted struc- 5.2. Suspended thin-film LiNbO3 devices The solidly mounted thin-
ture to improve the performace of SAW. As shown in Fig. 29a, silicon film SAW devices have achieved promising commercial success (a typ-
carbide (SiC) was chosen as the substrate for confining acoustic energy ical application is in the Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz band), but the operating fre-
within thin-film LN215 . SiC is the second best material (next to dia- quency and electromechanical coupling (k2 ) still remain insufficient for
mond) that has a mix of properties with respect to LN. It is endowed the next-generation wireless communication systems. To address the limi-
with exceptionally high thermal conductivity (370 W/(m·K)) and has been tations, novel suspended acoustic devices based on thin-film LiNbO3 have
known for harsh environment applications. The LN-on-SiC thin-film SAW been proposed and demonstrated with record-breaking Figure of Merits
demonstrated a k2 as high as 26.9%, a Q of 1228 and a Figure of Merit (FoM = k2 × Q) to support passband filtering of over 10% fractional
(FoM = k2 × Q) of 330 at 2.28 GHz. Despite the high performance of LN- bandwidth218–223 . In consideration of the acoustic energy confinement, the

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 26 | Summary of emerging technologies for 5G and beyond. Reprinted with permission from refs.3 , 25 , 28 , 207 . © 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, IEEE.

Fig. 27 | a, Simulated surface concentration ration of acoustic energy. b, Measured Q values in different SAW devices. (Red line: IHP-SAW resonator with 3 thin-film
layers; green line: IHP-SAW resonator with 2 thin-film layers; blue line: conventional 42° YX-LT SAW resonator). Reprinted with permission from ref.28 . © 2017, IEEE.

suspended thin-film platform is featured with the unique advantage that devices are primarily defined by their lateral dimensions, which can be
the surrounding air can provide the maximum acoustic impedance mis- accurately controlled by photolithography218 , 219 . However, their moderate
match. These suspended LN resonators have been demonstrated with vari- acoustic velocities, sub-7000 m/s for S0 and sub-4500 m/s for SH0 make
ous acoustic modes over an unprecedented wide range of frequencies from it challenging to cover the entire sub-7 GHz spectrum226 .
MHz to 60 GHz207 , 224 . For sub-7 GHz 5G NR applications, a single-crystal thin-film LN res-
Around GHz, fundamental symmetric Lamb wave (S0) mode and onator based on the first-order asymmetric Lamb wave (A1) mode was
shear horizontal wave (SH0) mode were proposed on single-crystal X-cut proposed by Y. Yang et al. in 2017220 . Subsequently, this resonator was
LN thin films with a demonstrated k2 over 20% and high Q225 , thanks to commercialized under the name of XBAR by Resonant Inc.223 . The op-
mode isolation and energy trapping of the suspended structures. As shown erating frequency of the A1 mode was determined by the thickness of
in Fig. 30, similar to SAW, the operating frequencies of S0 and SH0 mode the LN thin films and their lateral dimensions, enabling monolithic multi-

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 28 | a, Comparison between simulations of hetero-acoustic-layer (HAL) SAW and normal SAW86 . b, SEM micrograph of the cross section of an apodized LT-on-Si
bonded substrate214 . Reprinted with permission from refs.86 , 214 . © 2017, 2021, IEEE.

Fig. 29 | Thin-film SAW devices using lithium niobate (LiNbO3 or LN) on a silicon carbide215 and b amorphous/crystalline Si217 . Reprinted with permission from
refs.215 , 217 . © 2020, 2022, IEEE.

Fig. 30 | SEM images of suspended thin-film LN resonators based on (a) S0 mode218 and (b) SH0 mode219 . Reprinted with permission from refs.218 , 219 . © 2013,
2014, IEEE.

band solutions with moderately wide electrodes for substantial power- Fig. 31, the electrical and mechanical loadings of the electrodes can be
handling capabilities. An alternative approach is to excite the first or- balanced by the recessed grooves filled with electrodes for dispersion
der symmetric (S1) mode in X-cut LN, allowing the resonator to oper- matching227 .
ate at 6.5 GHz with a moderate k2 of 4.79%23 . By appropriately selecting To scale the piezoelectric acoustic devices to millimeter-wave
the Euler angle, a surprisingly high Qp (quality factor at parallel reso- (mmWave) frequencies, the asymmetric Lamb wave modes can be ex-
nance) over 100,000 has been demonstrated, representing the largest leap tended to higher orders, for which the operating frequency is determined
even seen for acoustic resonators. However, the high piezoelectric co- by the thickness of LN thin film, lateral dimensions and mode order228 .
efficients and anisotropic properties of LN lead to significant spurious As shown in Fig. 32, the fabricated device was measured with a Q over
modes around the passband, which is currently impeding the commer- 100 at 56 GHz (the 13th asymmetric mode)207 , but the k2 remains lim-
cialization of suspended thin-film LN devices. Several approaches have ited as it is inversely proportional to the square of the order. With further
been proposed to suppress the spurious modes, and one method is based advancement in ion-slicing or film transfer techniques, the operating fre-
on partially etching the top surface of LN thin film and filling the re- quency can be scaled up by directly reducing the thickness of LN thin
cessed grooves with metal electrodes. As shown by the SEM images in films without using higher order modes229 , 230 .

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Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 31 | a, SEM images of suspended thin-film LN resonator based on the first-order asymmetric Lamb wave (A1) mode222 . b, Recessed submicron thin-film LN for
spurious mode suppression227 . Reprinted with permission from refs.222 , 227 . © 2019, 2021, IEEE.

Fig. 32 | a, mmWave acoustic resonator operating around 56 GHz. b, Demonstrated mmWave acoustic devices based on asymmetric Lamb wave modes. Reprinted with
permission from ref.207 . © 2020, IEEE.

5.3. Single-crystal AlN Traditional FBAR and SMR BAW resonators are of XBAW resonators has been significantly improved25 . Measured power
constructed with the adoption of thin film piezoelectric AlN materials, handling capability at 5.2 GHz of single crystal MOCVD AlN exceeds
deposited by PVD techniques (e.g., sputter deposition), resulting in poly- polycrystalline PVD AlN by 2.3× when compared with dies mounted
crystalline AlN thin film. As single-crystal LT or LN thin films (either on laminate and by 1.95× when compared with dies tested on wafer.
solidly mounted or suspended) showed significant performance enhance- The XBAW technology combines AlScN material of enhanced electrome-
ment, researchers started to conduct investigations on single-crystal AlN chanical coupling and resonator structures with the optimized Q, enabling
deposition and doping231 . miniature high-performance RF filters and improved design trade space.
Single-crystal piezoelectric films should potentially exhibit higher As shown in Fig. 33b–d, several high frequency commercial level filters
acoustic velocity and piezoelectric coefficients than polycrystalline have been reported based on the XBAW technology, including a wide-
films25 . Besides, it is believed that single-crystal AlN thin films should band filter covering the UNII bands 1 through 3233 , a very steep transition
exhibit better thermal conductivity than poly-AlN, which results in better UNII-5 filter234 and a Wi-Fi 6E diplexer235 .
power handling capability. Therefore, the XBAW technology was devel-
oped by Akoustis in 201625 , 232 . Single-crystal AlN films were deposited 5.4. Hybrid From the above sections, it can be seen that traditional fil-
through MOCVD and the achieved FWHM was 0.03°, compared with ter technologies, either LTCC/IPD or acoustic, are not able to meet the
1.4° of poly-AlN films. As shown in Fig. 33a, the maximum input power new requirements set forth by 5G, Wi-Fi 7 and beyond. To realize high

CHIP | VOL 2 | WINTER 2023 Yang, K. et al. Chip 2, 100058 (2023) 19 of 26

Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 33 | a, Measured power handling capability at 5.2 GHz of single crystal MOCVD AlN compared to PVD AlN25 . b, Cross-section drawing of XBAW resonator using
Al0.72 Sc0.28 N piezo236 . c, Bode Q plot of XBAW resonator234 . d, Measured frequency response of an XBAW diplexer235 . Reprinted with permission from ref.236 © 2022,
IEEE.

Fig. 34 | a, The basic circuit schematic and b, layout drawing of the hybrid filter using IPD, acoustic and substrate technologies. Reprinted with permission from ref.3 . ©
2019, IEEE.

frequency, wide bandwidth and sharp roll-off at the same time, a hybrid components, based on two drastically different physical principles, would
filter design approach based on the combination of IPD and acoustic tech- cooperate with each other from the impedance point of view, as shown
nologies was proposed by C. Zuo et al. in 20193 . In general, the hybrid in Fig. 34. Consequently, one coherent band-pass filter characteristic is
design adopted IPD LC components to form a wide passband, which can formed and exhibited at the input and output ports of the whole circuit.
be almost as much bandwidth (> 2 GHz at the center frequency of 4 GHz) The Band n77 filter, as shown in Fig. 35a, was used as an extreme ex-
as needed, while acoustic resonators can be inserted into the circuit to cre- ample to show that a hybrid design could achieve 900 MHz wide passband
ate sharp notches so as to give the fast roll-off and high rejection at the (3.3 to 4.2 GHz) with a low insertion loss of less than 2.5 dB, while the
neighboring band. close-in rejection was 36 dB at 4.4 GHz (Band n79), only 200 MHz away
It should be noted that a hybrid filter is not simply putting an IPD chip from the passband, indicating the co-existence of wideband and sharp
and an acoustic resonator chip connected together. Instead, the co-design roll-off 3 . Fig. 35b shows another hybrid design which was also used to
between LC components and acoustic resonators should be conducted broaden the bandwidth of a Band n41 filter while the composing FBAR
at the circuit schematic level, so that the electromagnetic and acoustic resonators had limited k2 of only 6.5%237 . It was claimed that hybrid fil-

CHIP | VOL 2 | WINTER 2023 Yang, K. et al. Chip 2, 100058 (2023) 20 of 26

Review DOI: 10.1016/j.chip.2023.100058

Fig. 35 | a, Simulated transmission response of a hybrid Band n77 filer showing wide passband of 900 MHz, low insertion loss and high rejection3 . b, Performance
comparison between two Band n41 filters with FBAR alone and FBAR+IPD hybrid. (Red line: FBAR alone; green line: hybrid FBAR and IPD)237 . Reprinted with
permission from refs.3 , 237 © 2019, 2022, IEEE.

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