STTR Phase I: Piezoelectric/diamond RF MEMS Filters for Mobile Wireless Applications

Advanced Diamond Technologies, Northbrook IL

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will develop ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD®) as a high frequency structural layer for piezoelectrically-transduced micromachined RF resonators for MHz-GHz applications in wireless telecommunication systems. Diamond, in theory, is the ideal RF MEMS resonator material, having the extreme bulk properties of high acoustic velocity, hardness, thermal stability, and linearity, combined with the surface properties of low stiction and desirable surface chemistry. Diamond MEMS resonators can enable MEMS RF devices for civilian and military applications and allow for the direct integration of MEMS with microelectronics. With the potential for 100× reduction in size and power consumption relative to existing technologies while extending the performance of "radio on a chip" systems into the GHz, the RF MEMS market is forecasted at $1.1 billion by 2010.