Structural and thermal investigation for FBAR reliability in wireless applications

This paper describes work carried out to assess the failure mechanisms of film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs) developed for wireless applications. Two experimental benches were setup: one X-ray based (including diffraction, radiography and fluorescence analysis) and, for the first time, a high resolution infrared, in-situ thermal mapping apparatus. Finite element modeling was used to draw out the self heating of those components under high RF signal levels. In the paper, we describe each of those setups and highlight the improvements provided by their use when evaluating FBAR failure analysis mechanisms.