4.5 GHz Lithium Niobate MEMS Filters with 10% Fractional Bandwidth for 5G Front-ends

TL;DR

This paper introduces lithium niobate MEMS filters operating at 4.5 GHz with 10% fractional bandwidth, demonstrating the largest FBW for acoustic filters at 5G frequencies, suitable for advanced wireless front-ends.

Contribution

It presents a novel MEMS filter design based on asymmetric Lamb wave resonators in lithium niobate, achieving record fractional bandwidths for 5G applications.

Findings

Achieved 10% fractional bandwidth at 4.5 GHz

Demonstrated sharp roll-off and flat group delay

Largest FBW for acoustic filters at 5G frequencies

Abstract

This paper presents a new class of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) C-band filters for 5G front-ends. The filter is comprised of resonators based on the first-order asymmetric Lamb wave (A1) mode in thin film lithium niobate. Two filters have been demonstrated at 4.5 GHz with sharp roll-off, flat in-band group delay, and spurious-free response over a wide frequency range. The first design shows a fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 10%, an insertion loss (IL) of 1.7 dB, an out-of-band (OoB) rejection of -13 dB, and a compact footprint of 0.36 mm2, while the second design shows an FBW of 8.5%, an IL of 2.7 dB, an OoB rejection of -25 dB, and a footprint of 0.9 mm^2. The demonstrations herein mark the largest fractional bandwidth (FBW) achieved for acoustic-only filters at 5G frequencies.