A 300μW 1.9GHz CMOS Oscillator Utilizing Micromachined Resonators

Brian Otis, Jan Rabaey, proceedings of the ESSCIRC 2002 in Florence, Italy

A low-power, low phase-noise 1.9GHz RF oscillator is presented. The oscillator utilizes a single thin-film bulk acoustic wave resonator and was implemented in a standard 0.18 μm CMOS process. This paper addresses design issues involved in co-designing micromachined resonators with CMOS circuitry to realize ultra-low power RF transceiver components. The oscillator achieves a phase noise performance of –100dBc/Hz at 10kHz offset, –120dBc/Hz at 100kHz offset, and –140dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset. The start-up time of the oscillator is less than 1 μS. The oscillator core consumes 300 μΑ from a 1V supply.