A 300-mW 1.9-GHz CMOS Oscillator Utilizing Micromachined Resonators

Brian P. Otis and Jan M. Rabaey
IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 38, No. 7, July 2003

A low-power low-phase-noise 1.9-GHz RF oscillator is presented. The oscillator employs a single thin-film bulk acoustic wave resonator and was implemented in a standard 0.18- m CMOS process. This paper addresses design issues involved in codesigning micromachined resonators with CMOS circuitry to realize ultralow-power RF transceiver components.

The oscillator achieves a phase-noise performance of 100 dBc Hz at 10-kHz offset, 120 dBc Hz at 100-kHz offset, and 140 dBc Hz at 1-MHz offset. The startup time of the oscillator is less than 1 ms. The oscillator core consumes 300 mA from a 1-V supply.