SBIR Phase I: Single Crystal Group III-Nitride Bulk Acoustic Resonators and Bulk Acoustic Wave Filter Components for Mobile Communications

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project improves miniaturization, signal quality and battery life of consumer mobile wireless devices by commercialization of innovative single crystal resonators and acoustic wave filter solutions. Beyond consumer systems, the acoustic resonator technology has applications in industrial, medical, networking and military systems. The global market for bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filter components is expected to grow to over $3B by 2016 compared to just $0.8B market in 2011. Such rapid market growth, driven by signal convergence and proliferation of new allocated communications spectrum, creates the opportunity for new market entrants. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses a critical component need in today's radio frequency (RF) frontends for technologies such as Mobile Wireless and The Internet of Things. Arguably, the acoustic wave filter has evolved as the enabler of the RF frontend; it suffers, however, from lossy performance. Current filters can dissipate, as heat, up to half of the RF transmit power thus forcing significant overdesign of the RF power amp. This increases the complexity of thermal management, and it reduces battery life. Thus the inefficiency of current filter technologies increase the cost and size of wireless devices. To address this critical need, the company proposes a more efficient, lower loss acoustic filter technology. The research effort includes design, simulation, materials synthesis and fabricated single crystal resonators and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters using an experimental fabrication process flow and novel circuit layout. The fabricated resonators will be characterized for acoustic velocity, acoustic coupling and circuit quality factor.