1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to surface acoustic wave devices (hereinafter, the term “surface acoustic wave” is abbreviated as SAW) such as SAW resonators, SAW filters, and duplexers, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a SAW device using shear-horizontal waves (hereinafter, abbreviated as SH waves).
2. Description of the Related Art
SAW filters have been widely used for band-pass filters of mobile communication devices and other electronic apparatuses. Such known SAW filters include SAW resonator filters and transversal filters.
An exemplary known SAW resonator filter is configured such that an ST-cut 0° X-propagation quartz substrate having excellent temperature characteristics has an interdigital transducer (hereinafter, abbreviated as an IDT) and reflectors disposed thereon. The IDT and the reflectors are both made from an Al electrode material, and use Rayleigh waves produced by excitation of the IDT.
Such a SAW device experiences the following problems:
Another exemplary known SAW filter is configured such that an ST-cut 90° X-propagation quartz substrate has an IDT and reflectors disposed thereon. The IDT and the reflectors are both made from an electrode material such as Ta and W and use SH waves produced by excitation of the IDT.
However, using an SH wave device having electrodes made from Ta or W gives rise to the following problems:
In order to overcome the problems described above, preferred embodiments of the present invention provide a SAW device and an electronic device including the same, both having a significantly reduced size, high performance, a large electromechanical coupling coefficient, wherein losses due to the small electric resistance of the fingers are minimized, and the number of the fingers constituting the reflectors is also small.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a surface acoustic wave (hereinafter, the term “surface acoustic wave” is abbreviated as SAW) device preferably includes a quartz substrate, a plurality of first fingers, disposed on the quartz substrate, constituting an interdigital transducer (hereinafter, abbreviated as an IDT) for exciting shear-horizontal waves (hereinafter, abbreviated as SH waves), and a plurality of second fingers, disposed on the quartz substrate, constituting reflectors for reflecting the SH waves. The quartz substrate is preferably an ST-cut 90° X-propagation quartz substrate having Euler angles (0°, θ, 90°±2°), wherein the angle θ lies in the range of about 110° to about 150°, and the first and second fingers are made of a material including Au as a main component, and a normalized film thickness (H/λ) of the first and second fingers lies in the range of about 0.003 to about 0.095.
By disposing the fingers made mainly from Au on the ST-cut 90° X-propagation quartz substrate with the Euler angles (0°, θ, 90°±2°), there is provided a small, high-performance SAW device having a large electromechanical coupling coefficient, an excellent reflection, and a small number of the fingers constituting the reflectors when the normalized film thickness (H/λ) of the fingers lies in the range of about 0.003 to about 0.095 and the angle θ lies in the range of about 110° to about 150°, wherein losses are small owing to the small electric resistance of electrodes.
That is to say, the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention has an electromechanical coupling coefficient that is larger by a factor of about 1.5 or more and an electric resistance that is smaller than that of a comparative SAW device having Al electrodes and using X-propagation Rayleigh waves. Accordingly, the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention has smaller losses and can be used over a wider range of operating frequencies.
Also, the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention has fingers made mainly from heavy Au, leading to a slow acoustic speed (i.e., a slow surface wave speed) and thereby achieving a device with a reduced overall size.
Moreover, the SAW device has a reflective index that is about 30 times or greater than that of the comparative SAW device, thereby reducing the number of the fingers necessary to constitute the reflectors, leading to a device with a reduced overall size.
In addition, the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention has excellent properties when the device includes a unidirectional electrode.
In the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention, the normalized film thickness (H/λ) of the first and second fingers may be within the range of about 0.005 to about 0.062.
By configuring the fingers so as to have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) in the range of about 0.005 to about 0.062, the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention has an electromechanical coupling coefficient that is about two times or greater than that of the comparative SAW device, thereby achieving smaller losses and becoming available over a wider range of operating frequencies.
Also, the above-described configuration allows the SAW device to have a reflective index that is about 30 times or greater than that of the comparative SAW device, thereby achieving a reduced size of the reflectors and resulting in a device with a reduced overall size.
In the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention, the normalized film thickness (H/λ) of the first and second fingers is preferably at least about 0.01.
By configuring the fingers so as to have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) of about 0.01 or larger, the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention has an improved reflective index per finger of about 15% or more, thereby achieving a further reduced size realized by reducing the number of fingers of the reflectors. For example, the SAW device has a reflective index of about 99% or more by providing the reflectors with about 30 fingers.
In the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention, the normalized film thickness (H/λ) of the first and second fingers is preferably at least about 0.02.
By configuring the fingers so as to have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) of about 0.02 or larger, the SAW device according to preferred embodiments of the present invention has an improved reflective index per finger of about 35% or more, thus the same reduced size as that of an end surface reflection-type SAW device can be substantially achieved. For example, the SAW device has a reflective index of about 99% or more by providing the reflectors with about 10 fingers.
In the surface acoustic wave according to preferred embodiments of the present invention, the angle θ of the Euler angles preferably satisfies the following condition:
θmin≦θ≦θmax
where, θmax=37500(H/λ)2−135.0(H/λ)+128.85, and
θmin=25714(H/λ)2−508.6(H/λ)+120.44.
By satisfying the above condition, that is, by allowing the angle θ to be between the θmin and θmax indicated in
According to preferred embodiments of the present invention, an electronic device includes at least one of a SAW resonator, a SAW resonator filter, a SAW ladder filter, a SAW lattice filter, and a unidirectional element, each including the SAW device according to preferred embodiments described above.
The SAW device according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention can be used as a SAW resonator, a SAW resonator filter, a SAW ladder filter, a SAW lattice filter, or a unidirectional element, thus providing a small, high-performance electronic device using the above-described SAW device.
Other features, elements, characteristics and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments thereof with reference to the attached drawings.
Accordingly, Au electrodes can reduce the size of the quartz substrate, thereby achieving a reduced size of the SAW devices.
Accordingly, an Au electrode material allows SAW devices to have a large electromechanical coupling coefficient and small losses over a wide range of operating frequencies.
As shown in
Accordingly, suitable conditions of the normalized film thickness (H/λ) according to preferred embodiments of the present invention allows the SAW devices to have a sufficient reflection index and a reduced size.
As shown in
Features of preferred embodiments according to the present invention will be described further in detail.
As shown in
The IDTs 3a and 3b and the reflectors 4a and 4b are preferably made from an electrode material made mainly from Au. Each of the IDTs 3a and 3b has a pair of comb-shape electrodes which are arranged such that the teeth portions of the pair of comb-shape electrodes interdigitate with each other.
Also, each of the IDTs 3a and 3b and the reflectors 4a and 4b has fingers that are arranged substantially to the propagation direction of the first SAW device.
In addition, fingers constituting the IDTs 3a and 3b and the reflectors 4a and 4b preferably have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) in the range of about 0.003 to about 0.095. The longitudinally coupled resonator filter 1 has fingers made mainly from Au that are disposed on the ST-cut 90° X-propagation quartz substrate 2 with an angle θ in the range of about 110° to about 150° of the Euler angles and that have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) in the range of about 0.003 to about 0.095. Thus, compared to a comparative SAW device having Al electrodes and using X-propagation Rayleigh waves, this configuration allows the SAW device to have an electromechanical coupling coefficient that is larger by a factor of about 1.5 or more and to have smaller losses due to a smaller electric resistance of the fingers made mainly from Au, and accordingly to be available over a wider range of operating frequencies.
In addition, this configuration allows the SAW device to have an excellent reflection property of the fingers made mainly from Au, and to have a reduced size of the reflectors by reducing the number of fingers constituting the reflectors, thereby achieving a device with a substantially reduced overall size.
As is obvious from
In the longitudinally coupled resonator filter 1, the reflective index of the fingers is three times or greater than that of the conventional fingers, thus the number of fingers of the reflectors 4a and 4b required to reflect almost all SAW waves radiated from the IDTs 3a and 3b is much smaller (i.e., one third or less of that of the conventional fingers).
The test conditions of the longitudinally-coupled resonator filter are as follows:
It is obvious from
The IDTs 13a and 13b and the reflectors 14a and 14b are preferably made from an electrode material made mainly from Au. Each of the IDTs 13a and 13b has a pair of comb-shape electrodes which are arranged such that the teeth portions of the pair of comb-shape electrodes interdigitate with each other.
Also, each of the IDTs 13a and 13b and the reflectors 14a and 14b has fingers that are substantially perpendicular to the propagation direction of the second SAW device. In addition, fingers constituting the IDTs 13a and 13b and the reflectors 14a and 14b preferably have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) in the range of about 0.003 to about 0.095.
The transversely coupled SAW filter 11 according to the second preferred embodiment achieves the same advantages as those of the first preferred embodiment.
The present invention also provides a multi-step filter configured by longitudinally connecting a plurality of the first SAW devices shown in
As shown in
The IDT 23 and the reflectors 24a and 24b are preferably made from an electrode material made mainly from Au. The IDT 23 has a pair of comb-shape electrodes which are arranged such that the teeth portions of the pair of comb-shape electrodes interdigitate with each other.
Also, fingers constituting the IDT 23 and the reflectors 24a and 24b preferably have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) in the range of about 0.003 to about 0.095.
As shown in
The IDTs 33a and 33b and the reflectors 34a and 34b are preferably made from an electrode material made mainly from Au. Each of the IDTs 33a and 33b has a pair of comb-shape electrodes which are arranged such that the teeth portions of the pair of comb-shape electrodes interdigitate with each other.
The pluralities of IDTs 33a and 33b are arranged in a series arm and parallel arms, respectively, so as to provide a ladder-type SAW device. Likewise in the first to third preferred embodiments, fingers constituting the IDTs 33a and 33b and the reflectors 34a and 34b preferably have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) in the range of about 0.003 to about 0.095 in this preferred embodiment.
The third and fourth SAW devices according to the third and fourth preferred embodiments shown in
In the SAW devices according to the first to fourth preferred embodiments, by configuring the fingers so as to have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) in the range of about 0.005 to about 0.062, the SAW devices have an electromechanical coupling coefficient that is about two times or greater than that of the comparative SAW device, thereby achieving a SAW device of which losses are further smaller and which is available over a wider range of operating frequencies. In addition, the SAW devices according to the preferred embodiments of the present invention have a reflection index that is about 30 times or greater than that of the comparative SAW device, thereby achieving a reduced size of the reflectors and resulting in a small SAW device.
Also, in the SAW devices according to the first to fourth preferred embodiments, by configuring the fingers so as to have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) of about 0.01 or larger, the SAW devices have a larger reflective index per finger, thereby achieving a further larger reflective index and a further reduced size.
Furthermore, in the SAW devices according to the first to fourth preferred embodiments, by configuring the fingers so as to have a normalized film thickness (H/λ) of about 0.02 or larger, the SAW devices have a further larger reflective index per finger, thus the same reduced size as that of an end surface reflection-type SAW device can be substantially achieved.
By allowing an angle θ of the Euler angles to satisfy the following condition, that is, by allowing the angle θ to lie between the θmin and θmax indicated in
θmin≦θ≦θmax
where, θmax=37500(H/λ)2−135.0(H/λ)+128.85, and
θmin=25714(H/λ)2−508.6(H/λ)+120.44.
Although in the first to fourth preferred embodiments, a SAW resonator and a SAW filter are described as exemplary SAW devices, the present invention is not limited these devices, but are applicable to other types of SAW filters such as a transversal filter and also to other types of SAW devices excluding filters.
Also, the present invention is not limited to the foregoing preferred embodiments, but the specific shape of a quartz substrate, arrangement of fingers constituting an IDT and reflectors, the number of fingers, normalized film thickness of the fingers and so on can be modified or changed without departing from the scope of the spirit of the present invention.
While preferred embodiments of the invention have been described above, it is to be understood that variations and modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing the scope and spirit of the invention. The scope of the invention, therefore, is to be determined solely by the following claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2001-132656 | Apr 2001 | JP | national |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
4965479 | Elliott et al. | Oct 1990 | A |
5895996 | Takagi et al. | Apr 1999 | A |
5953433 | Fujimoto et al. | Sep 1999 | A |
5965969 | Kadota | Oct 1999 | A |
6154105 | Fujimoto et al. | Nov 2000 | A |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
63-198410 | Aug 1988 | JP |
2000-323956 | Nov 2000 | JP |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20020171513 A1 | Nov 2002 | US |