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UHF Clocks Based on Ovenized AlN MEMS Resonators

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Abstract

This work describes temperature compensated UHF oscillators based on AlN MEMS resonators with co-integrated heaters. Two approaches are proposed and experimentally verified. In the first, the heater is used to maintain the resonators temperature, and hence its frequency, constant. In the second, the heater is used as a tuning knob to compensate for both the temperature dependency of the resonator and its driving circuitry. With this latter approach, a 586 MHz oscillator was shown to exhibit a temperature stability of 1.7 ppm from −45°C to 85°C, with phase noise better than 91 and −160 dBc/Hz at 1 kHz and 40 MHz offsets, respectively.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the DEFYS DARPA Award # FA86501217264, “PiezoElectric Non Linear Nanomechanical Temperature and Acceleration Insensitive Clocks” (PENNTAC).

Authors would like to acknowledge Matteo Rinaldi and Nai-Kuei Kuo for devices fabrication and Vectron International, PA, USA, for packaging the oscillator.

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Correspondence to Augusto Tazzoli .

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Tazzoli, A., Piazza, G. (2014). UHF Clocks Based on Ovenized AlN MEMS Resonators. In: Baschirotto, A., Makinwa, K., Harpe, P. (eds) Frequency References, Power Management for SoC, and Smart Wireless Interfaces. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01080-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01080-9_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-01079-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01080-9

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