Accurate Simulation of RF MEMS VCO performance including phase noise

Author

Behera, Manas ; Kratyuk, Volodymyr ; De, Sudipto K. ; Aluru, Narayan R. ; Hu, Yutao ; Mayaram, Kartikeya

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR, USA

Volume

14

Issue

2

fYear

2005

fDate

4/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

313

Lastpage

325

Abstract

A new coupled circuit and electrostatic/mechanical simulator (COSMO) is presented for the design of low phase noise radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs). The numerical solution of device level equations is used to accurately compute the capacitance of a MEMS capacitor. This coupled with a circuit simulator facilitates the simulation of circuits incorporating MEMS capacitors. In addition, the noise from the MEMS capacitor is combined with a nonlinear circuit-level noise analysis to determine the phase noise of RF MEMS VCO. Simulations of two different MEMS VCO architectures show good agreement with experimentally observed behavior.

Keywords

capacitance; capacitors; circuit noise; circuit simulation; electrostatics; micromechanical devices; phase noise; radiofrequency oscillators; voltage-controlled oscillators; MEMS capacitor; RF MEMS VCO; circuit simulation; circuit simulator; coupled simulator; device level equations; device simulation; electrostatic-mechanical simulator; microelectromechanical systems; noise simulation; nonlinear circuit-level noise analysis; phase noise; radio frequency voltage-controlled oscillators; Capacitors; Circuit noise; Circuit simulation; Computational modeling; Coupling circuits; Micromechanical devices; Phase noise; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Voltage-controlled oscillators; Circuit simulation; coupled circuit and device simulation; electrostatic/mechanical simulator; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitor; microelectromechanical systems voltage-controlled oscillator (MEMS VCO); noise simulation; phase noise; radio frequency voltage-controlled oscillator (RF VCO);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microelectromechanical Systems, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1057-7157

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JMEMS.2004.839317

Filename

1416908