Center for Integrated Radio Frequency Engineering

A photo of two researchers conducting an experiment in the Centre for Integrated Radio Frequency Engineering. The Centre for Integrated Radio Frequency Engineering (CIRFE) lab is a key Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) facility in Canada established by Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology member, Raafat Mansour. Established in 1999 with funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT) and COM DEV, the CIRFE houses a class of 10,000 clean rooms and a characterization laboratory for radio frequency MEMS devices.

A researcher conducting measurements in the Centre for Integrated Radio Frequency Engineering (CIRFE). The uniqueness of the facility stems from the fact that it is one of the few clean room facilities that is designed to use metals such as gold and silver. While gold is necessary in making high performance low-loss MEMS, gold is known to contaminate microelectronic thin film processes. None of the clean facilities at University of Waterloo or nearby universities permit the use of gold in their equipment. The ability to use gold films is a key feature that is so important to many researchers who need to use such type of films for their devices.

Capabilities and Equipment

The focus of the CIRFE research activities is on emerging Radio Frequency (RF) technologies including RF Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), miniature Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), wireless intelligent systems, filters and multiplexers, superconductivity, novel materials, computer-aided circuit diagnosis, simulation, and modeling. The uniqueness of the CIRFE lies in the ability to integrate various RF technologies and in its wide range of capabilities, which include research, development, modeling, design, fabrication, packaging, and testing.

MEMS

RF MEMS switches; switch matrices; varactors; micromachined filters; micromachined antennas; phase shifters; adaptive MEMS-based RF and optical systems; MEMS packaging.

Filters and Multiplexers

Dielectric resonator, waveguide, coaxial, superconductive and active filters; highly miniature filters and tunable filters; temperature compensation of high power filters; miniature filters structures based on bandgap and meta-materials.

Modeling and advanced design methodologies

Computer-aided diagnosis of RF circuits (frequency domain, time domain, fuzzy logic); electromagnetic (EM)-based design methodologies; mixed RF/thermal analysis of high power RF circuits.

RFID

Passive and active RFIDs; miniature antennas; micro generators; and wireless sensors.

Design tools

RF design tools
HFSS
ADS
Momentum
Sonnet EM
FEMLAB
Q3D Extractor
Wizard>
ePhysics
In-house software tools
MEMS Design and Layout Tools
CoventorWare
MEMSPro
Cadence
Ledit
Ansys
IDEA
Optical Design Tools
R-soft
In-house software tools

Fabrication

PECVD deposition of nitride, silicon oxide
RIE etching of nitride, silicon oxide
E-beam evaporation and sputtering of metals
Spin coating of low-K and high K materials
Wet etching and photolithography
Laser micromachining (Green and UV)
Critical Point CO₂Dryer
Electroplating: gold and silver

Packaging

Wire/ribbon bonding
Flip chip bonding
Substrate to carrier attachment
Surface micromachining for wafer level packaging

Testing

VNA frequency domain testing up to 40 GHz, with time domain capability
On-wafer probe testing (room temperature)
On-wafer probe testing in vacuum (10-6 torr) over temperatures down to 10 K with laser trimming capability
A temperature controlled chamber for testing devices down to 77 K>
Optical breadboarding and bench testing
A multi-channel MEMS driver station
Multifunction generators, power suppliers, high frequency bias tees