Temperature-compensated micromechanical resonator

Abstract

A micromechanical resonator is passively compensated to reduce the value of the temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF). The resonator may be part of a MEMS device and includes temperature compensating material encapsulated within the resonator between a resonator body and a capping layer. The compensating material has a TCE that is opposite to that of the resonator body material. One material has a positive TCE and the other material has a negative TCE. The compensating material can be located at or near high strain regions of the resonator to help minimize the amount of compensating material necessary to bring the TCF of the resonator close to zero. The compensating material can also be located in trenches formed only partially through the resonator body, thus allowing the resonator to be released from a substrate using wet release methods without etching away any of the compensating material.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.