RF-MEMS switchable inductors for tunable bandwidth BAW filters

Author

Aliouane, S. ; Kouki, A.B. ; Aigner, Robert

Author_Institution

Microelectron. & Commun. Lab. (LACIME), Ecole de Technol. Super., Montreal, QC, Canada

fYear

2010

fDate

23-25 March 2010

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

This paper presents a method for reconfiguring the bandwidth of Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) ladder filters by adding switchable inductors to their shunt resonators. Inductance values are controlled by selecting the number of turn in spiral inductor using micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) switches. For this purpose, a MEMS inductor has been designed, fabricated and characterized in terms of inductance value, quality factor, and resonance frequency. A measurement-based model of this inductor has been implemented in a circuit simulator to build a reconfigurable RF Ladder BAW filter intended for handset applications. The simulation results show that, using this switchable inductor, it is possible to increase the filter bandwidth by up to 25% with an improved out-of-band rejection and without degrading its selectivity.

Keywords

bulk acoustic wave devices; filters; inductors; microswitches; resonators; MEMS switches; RF-MEMS switchable inductor; bulk acoustic wave; inductance value; micro-electro-mechanical switches; quality factor; resonance frequency; shunt resonator; spiral inductor; tunable bandwidth BAW filter; Acoustic waves; Bandwidth; Circuit simulation; Inductance; Inductors; Micromechanical devices; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Resonator filters; Shunt (electrical); Tunable circuits and devices;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Design and Technology of Integrated Systems in Nanoscale Era (DTIS), 2010 5th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Hammamet

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-6338-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/DTIS.2010.5487536

Filename

5487536