Bulk acoustic wave resonator and circuit comprising same

• US 7,616,079 B2
• Filed: 09/18/2003
• Issued: 11/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Snaptrack Incorporated (Qualcomm, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Epcos AG (TDK Corporation)
• Inventors: Tikka, Pasi, Stommer, Ralph, Unterberger, Michael, Schmidhammer, Edgar
• Primary Examiner(s): Summons; Barbara
• Application Number:
  US10/530,507
• Publication Number:
  US 20060164183A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,245 Days
• Field of Search: 333187-192
• US Class Current: 333/189
• CPC Class Codes: H03H 9/583 comprising a plurality of piezoelectric layers acoustically coupled

Abstract

The invention relates to a resonator operating with bulk acoustic waves (BAW resonator, BAW=Bulk Acoustic Wave) and band-pass filters constructed of such resonators. To increase the edge steepness of the transmission band of a BAW band-pass filter, the invention proposes reducing the effective coupling of a BAW resonator by using the connection in parallel of a BAW resonator and a capacitor instead of only one resonator. In addition, to increase the edge steepness of the transmission band, the use of a connection of coupled BAW resonators in the serial branch of a filter circuit with another resonator or resonator stack in the parallel branch of the filter circuit is proposed, the additional resonator or resonator stack being connected to the center electrode of the resonator stack specified initially.

Claims

1. A filter comprising resonators for use with bulk acoustic waves,

each of the resonators for use with bulk acoustic waves comprising:

a lower layer region comprising a first electrode;

an upper layer region comprising a second electrode; and

a piezoelectric layer between the first electrode and the second electrode;

wherein two of the resonators are in a stacked crystal filter arrangement, the two of the resonators comprising two bulk acoustic wave resonators, the stacked crystal filter arrangement of the two bulk acoustic wave resonators comprising;

piezoelectric layers between an upper electrode in the stacked crystal filter arrangement and a lower electrode in the stacked crystal filter arrangement; and

a shared electrode among the piezoelectric layers in the stacked crystal filter arrangement;

wherein an additional resonator is connected to the stacked crystal filter arrangement so that a combination of the two resonators and the additional resonator form an element of a lattice-type filter or a ladder-type filter, the additional resonator comprising a bulk acoustic wave resonator or an inductive-capacitive (LC) resonator;

a capacitor in series or in parallel with one of the two resonators in the stacked crystal filter arrangement, and

a multilayer substrate, wherein the capacitor is integrated into the multilayer substrate, the capacitor comprising structured metal layers within the multilayer substrate.

2. The filter of claim 1, wherein the additional resonator comprises at least one passive inductive component and at least one passive capacitive component.

3. The filter of claim 1, wherein each of the upper layer region and the lower layer region comprises a plurality of layers.

4. The filter of claim 3, wherein a plurality of layers in the upper layer region comprises layers that include different materials, and a plurality of layers in the lower layer region comprises layers that include different materials.

5. The filter of claim 1, wherein at least one of the upper layer region and the lower layer region comprises an acoustic mirror, the acoustic mirror comprising at least two alternating layers having different acoustic impedances.

6. The filter of claim 5, wherein at least one layer of the acoustic mirror comprises an electrode layer.

7. The filter of claim 1, wherein there is an air gap between at least one of the resonators and the multilayer substrate.

8. The filter of claim 1, wherein the additional resonator is an LC resonator.

9. A duplexer comprising a filter according to claim 8.

10. A duplexer comprising a filter according to claim 8.

11. The filter of claim 1, wherein, for at least one of the resonators for use with bulk acoustic waves, an upper layer region and a lower layer region comprises a plurality of layers.

12. The filter of claim 11, wherein a plurality of layers in each upper layer region comprises layers that include different materials, and a plurality of layers in each lower layer region comprises layers that include different materials.

13. The filter of claim 11, wherein there is an air gap between at least one of the resonators and the multilayer substrate.

14. The filter of claim 1, wherein each upper layer region and each lower layer region comprises an acoustic mirror, each acoustic mirror comprising at least two alternating layers having different acoustic impedances.

15. The filter of claim 14, wherein at least one layer of each acoustic mirror comprises an electrode layer.

16. An electrical circuit comprising:

a substrate;

a stack of resonators;

an acoustic mirror between the substrate and the stack of resonators;

wherein the stack of resonators comprises;

first resonators that operate with bulk acoustic waves, the first resonators comprising an upper resonator and a lower resonator, the upper resonator and the lower resonator comprising upper and lower electrodes; and

a coupling layer between an upper electrode of the lower resonator and a lower electrode of the upper resonator;

a second resonator comprising electrodes;

wherein the upper electrode of the lower resonator and the lower electrode of the upper resonator are electrically connected to an electrode of the second resonator;

wherein the electrical circuit further comprises a capacitor in parallel with at least one of the resonators or in series with at least one of the resonators;

wherein the substrate comprises a multilayer substrate; and

wherein the capacitor is integrated into the multilayer substrate the capacitor comprising structured metal layers within the multilayer substrate.

17. The electrical circuit of claim 16, wherein an electrode of the second resonator is connected to ground.

18. The electrical circuit of claim 16, wherein the second resonator comprises a single resonator, the single resonator comprising a lower electrode, an upper electrode, and a piezoelectric layer between the upper electrode and the lower electrode.