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SIGNAL PROCESSING

Acoustic resonators with a commercial ring

Nature Electronics volume 5, pages 545–546 (2022)Cite this article

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Unreleased acoustic resonators fabricated in commercial fin-field-effect-transistor technology could be used in multigigahertz signal processing.

Miniaturized acoustic microsystems — such as reference oscillators and front-end filters — are critical building blocks in modern wireless transceivers for radiofrequency signal processing1,2. In these systems, the integration of nano- and microelectromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS) resonators with advanced electronic circuits is key due to the complexity of modern radiofrequency front-ends. Conventionally, there are two approaches to integrating NEMS/MEMS resonators and complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology: using existing metal and oxide layers in the CMOS process to make suspended micromechanical structures with piezoresistive, thermal and electrostatic transducers3; and depositing high-quality piezoelectric materials on CMOS wafers to create bulk acoustic wave transducers4. However, the resonator performance in the first approach is limited by the weak electrostatic and thermal transduction effect and is suitable for only low-frequency operation, whereas the device in the second approach requires special piezoelectric thin-film materials that are not available in most CMOS foundries. Writing in Nature Electronics, Jackson Anderson, Dana Weinstein and colleagues now report a fin-field-effect-transistor (FinFET) resonator — also known as a resonant body transistor — that is fabricated in a commercial 14 nm CMOS technology and could be of use in multigigahertz signal processing applications5.

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Fig. 1: Unreleased CMOS FinFET resonators with phononic acoustic energy confinement.

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  1. Department of Power Mechanical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Ming-Huang Li

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  1. Ming-Huang Li
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Correspondence to Ming-Huang Li.

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Li, MH. Acoustic resonators with a commercial ring. Nat Electron 5, 545–546 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-022-00837-4

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