title: 1.05-GHz CMOS oscillator based on lateral- field-excited piezoelectric AlN contour- mode MEMS resonators.
abstract: This paper reports on the first demonstration of a 1.05-GHz microelectromechanical (MEMS) oscillator based on lateral-field-excited (LFE) piezoelectric AlN contourmode resonators. The oscillator shows a phase noise level of -81 dBc/Hz at 1-kHz offset frequency and a phase noise floor of -146 dBc/Hz, which satisfies the global system for mobile communications (GSM) requirements for ultra-high frequency (UHF) local oscillators (LO). The circuit was fabricated in the AMI semiconductor (AMIS) 0.5-microm complementary metaloxide- semiconductor (CMOS) process, with the oscillator core consuming only 3.5 mW DC power. The device overall performance has the best figure-of-merit (FoM) when compared with other gigahertz oscillators that are based on film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR), surface acoustic wave (SAW), and CMOS on-chip inductor and capacitor (CMOS LC) technologies. A simple 2-mask process was used to fabricate the LFE AlN resonators operating between 843 MHz and 1.64 GHz with simultaneously high Q (up to 2,200) and kt 2 (up to 1.2%). This process further relaxes manufacturing tolerances and improves yield. All these advantages make these devices suitable for post-CMOS integrated on-chip direct gigahertz frequency synthesis in reconfigurable multiband wireless communications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. czuo@seas.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Chengjie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zuo
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Van der Spiegel
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Piazza
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D017607:Aluminum Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D055617:Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008872:Microwaves; D009991:Oscillometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012666:Semiconductors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014159:Transducers; D014732:Vibration
chemical_list: D017607:Aluminum Compounds; C052045:aluminum nitride