Title :
Phase noise shaping via forced nonlinearity in piezoelectrically actuated silicon micromechanical oscillators
Author :
Pardo, M. ; Sorenson, L. ; Pan, W. ; Ayazi, F.
Author_Institution :
Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA
Abstract :
This paper shows improved phase-noise performance of MEMS oscillators when the sustaining amplifier operates a lateral bulk acoustic wave AlN-on-Si resonator in the nonlinear regime. An empirical exponential-series-based model that closely describes the phase noise in nonlinearity is presented, reflecting the increased resonator filter order and the reduced amplifier flicker-noise contribution. An oscillator using a 23 MHz in-plane shear mode resonator with a quality factor of 4,000 exhibits a phase noise of -130 dBc/Hz at 1 KHz offset-frequency, corresponding to an improvement of about 20 dB with respect to linear operation.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; amplifiers; elemental semiconductors; flicker noise; micromechanical resonators; oscillators; phase noise; piezoelectric devices; silicon; wide band gap semiconductors; AlN-Si; MEMS oscillators; Si; acoustic wave resonator; amplifier flicker-noise contribution; forced nonlinearity; frequency 23 MHz; increased resonator filter; inplane shear mode resonator; phase noise shaping; piezoelectrical actuated micromechanical oscillator; Electrodes; Micromechanical devices; Performance evaluation; Phase noise; Resonant frequency; Silicon;
Conference_Titel :
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), 2011 IEEE 24th International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Cancun
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-9632-7
DOI :
10.1109/MEMSYS.2011.5734541
