Practical Demonstrations of FR3-Band Thin-Film Lithium Niobate Acoustic Filter Design

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to design compact, high-performance thin-film lithium niobate acoustic filters with tunable frequency and bandwidth, suitable for future 6G applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using A1 mode XBAR resonators and TFLN anisotropic properties to customize filter characteristics at high frequencies.

Findings

Achieved a 20.5 GHz filter with 1.79 dB IL and 8.58% FBW.

Demonstrated a 22.0 GHz filter with 3.80 dB IL and 6.12% FBW.

Showcased high out-of-band rejection exceeding 14.9 dB.

Abstract

This article presents an approach to control the operating frequency and fractional bandwidth (FBW) of miniature acoustic filters in thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN). More specifically, we used first-order antisymmetric (A1) mode lateral-field-excited bulk acoustic wave resonators (XBARs) to achieve efficient operation at 20.5 GHz. Our technique leverages the thickness-dependent resonant frequency of A1 XBARs, combined with the in-plane anisotropic properties of 128$^\circ$ Y-cut TFLN, to customize filter characteristics. The implemented three-element ladder filter prototype achieves an insertion loss (IL) of only 1.79 dB and a controlled 3-dB FBW of 8.58% at 20.5 GHz, with an out-of-band (OoB) rejection greater than 14.9 dB across the entire FR3 band, while featuring a compact footprint of 0.90 $\times$ 0.74 mm2. Moreover, an eight-element filter prototype shows an IL of 3.80 dB, an FBW of 6.12% at 22.0 GHz, and a high OoB rejection of 22.97 dB, demonstrating the potential for expanding to higher-order filters. As frequency allocation requirements become more stringent in future FR3 bands, our technique showcases promising capability in enabling compact and monolithic filter banks toward next-generation acoustic filters for 6G and beyond.