Temperature-Insensitive Composite Micromechanical Resonators

Abstract

Utilizing silicon and silicon dioxide's opposing temperature coefficients of Young's modulus, composite resonators with zero linear temperature coefficient of frequency are fabricated and characterized. The resulting resonators have a quadratic temperature coefficient of frequency of approximately -20 ppb/degC <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> and a tunable turnover temperature in the -55degC to 125degC range. Reduction of the temperature dependence of frequency is shown in flexural-mode resonators (700 kHz-1.3 MHz) and extensional-mode ring resonators (20 MHz). The linear temperature coefficient of Young's modulus of silicon dioxide is extracted from measurements to be +179 ppm/degC. The composite resonators are fabricated and packaged in a CMOS-compatible wafer-scale hermetic encapsulation process. The long-term stability of the resonators is monitored for longer than six months. Although most devices exhibit less than 2 ppm frequency drift, there is evidence of dielectric charging in the silicon dioxide.