<\/a>Figure 1: Schematic of longitudinal bar resonator with lateral dielectric transducer, showing an interdigitated electrode design. <\/p><\/div>\n
Traditionally, RF circuits for wireless communications have used large-sized and low-quality-factor (Q<\/em>) electrical RF components such as oscillators and filter banks, which create a bottleneck to miniaturization. Silicon-based micromechanical resonators can complement or even replace their electrical counterparts in existing wireless technology by providing RF building blocks with small size, low power, high-Q<\/em> and multi-GHz frequency (high speed) functionality.<\/p>\nIn this project, we are developing bulk acoustic resonators for use in low-power transceivers in Body-area Networks (BAN), as part of the Healthy Radios project sponsored by MARCO IFC\/MSD. These networks will transmit data from multiple sensors for parallel monitoring of medical or environmental variables. An integrated solution for transceiver design employing multiple channels separated by 1 MHz in the 2.36 to 2.4 GHz Medical BAN band requires a bank of RF resonators with quality factors greater than those achievable using conventional LC tanks. We explore high-Q<\/em> micromechanical resonators using lateral dielectric transduction [