Tunistors - Mechanical resonators for microcircuits

A new miniature tuning device operating on a flexural resonance of a thin metal substrate has been demonstrated. The device, known as a Tunistor, uses deposited piezoelectric films as input and output transducers, and can be batch fabricated by standard integrated circuit techniques. Tunistors have been built betwen 200 and 2500 Hz with Q´s between 200 and 1500 and voltage insertion losses as low as 20 dB. The possibility exists of designing Tunistors with near-zero temperature coefficients of frequency and with relatively great immunity to external vibration. The Tunistor permits a new degree of miniaturization of stable audio frequency oscillators and high-Q filters by means of hybrid microcircuits. The paper will compare the Tunistor with previous miniature resonators and discuss the various parameters which determine the important characteristics.