SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVE [SAW] FILTERS

Surface Acoustic Wave Filters or SAW Filters are compact, low-cost RF filters that can be used in a
wide range of applications up to 3 GHz.

They are electromechanical devices used in wide range of radio frequency applications providing
frequency control, frequency selection and signal processing capabilities. Their performance is based
on piezoelectric characteristics of a substrate (which will almost always be a crystal).

They operate by converting electrical energy into acoustic or mechanical energy on a piezoelectric
material. To do so these filters uses interdigital transducers (IDTs). The IDTs have interleaved metal
electrodes on either end of the device which converts an electrical signal into an acoustic wave and
then back to an electrical signal.

Once the electrical energy is converted into acoustic waves, the waves travel across the surface of an
elastic, piezoelectric material with an amplitude decaying into the substrate material, such as quartz,
lithium tantalite (LiTaO3) or lithium niobate (LiNbO3). This decay is what causes the insertion loss in
SAW Filters.

Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filters are best suited for applications up to 3 GHz. The filter selectivity
starts to decline above 1.5 GHz, and at about 3 GHz their use is limited to applications that have
modest performance requirements.

The center frequency of a SAW filter is impacted considerably by temperature variations. Except for
the Quartz substrate, the center frequency of a filter will shift upwards at lower temperatures and
downwards at higher temperatures in a linear fashion. To compensate for these shifts in frequency,
temperature shift components are often added to SAW filters.
Application of SAW