  Surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices are widely used as filter, resonator or
delay line in electronic systems in a wide range of applications: mobile
communication, TVs, radar, stable resonator for clock generation, etc. The
resonance frequency and the delay line of SAW devices are depending on the
properties of materials forming the device and could be very sensitive to the
physical parameters of the environment. Since SAW devices are more and more
used as sensor for a large variety of area: gas, pressure, force, temperature,
strain, radiation, etc. The sensors based SAW present the advantage to be
passive (batteryless) and/or wireless. These interesting properties combined
with a small size, a low cost radio request system and a small antennas when
operating at high frequency, offer new and exiting perspectives for wireless
measurement processes and IDTAG applications. When the materials constituting
the devices are properly selected, it becomes possible to use those sensors
without embedded electronic in hostile environments (as high temperature,
nuclear site, ...) where no solutions are currently used. General principle of
the SAW sensor in wired and wireless configurations will be developed and a
review of recent works concerning the field of high temperature applications
will be presented with specific attention given to the choice of materials
constituting the SAW device.
