Clark T.-C. Nguyen (Advisor)

The increasing demands for higher performance, advanced wireless and mobile communication systems have continuously driven device innovations and system improvements. In order to reduce power consumption and integration complexity, radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) resonators and filters have been considered as direct replacements for off-chip passive components. In this dissertation, a new radio architecture for direct channel selection is explored. The primary elements in this new architecture include a multitude of closely-spaced narrowband filters (...

The ever increasing need for regional and global roaming together with continuous advances in wireless communication standards continue to push future transceivers towards an ability to support multi-mode operation with minimal increases in cost, hardware complexity, and power consumption. RF channel-select filter banks pose a particularly attractive method for achieving multiband reconfigurability, since they not only provide the needed front-end reconfigurability, but also allow for power efficient and versatile transceiver designs, e.g., software-defined radio. Such channel-select...

On chip capacitive-gap transduced micromechanical resonators constructed via MEMS technology have achieved very high Q’s at both VHF and UHF range, making them very attractive as on-chip frequency selecting elements for filters in wireless communication applications. Still, there are applications, such as software-defined cognitive radio, that demand even higher Q’s at RF to enable low-loss selection of single channels (rather than bands of them) to reduce the power consumption of succeeding electronic stages down to levels more appropriate for battery-powered handhelds. This...