MEMS-based oscillators are an emerging class of highly miniaturized, batch manufacturable timing devices that can rival the electrical performance of well-established quartz-based oscillators. In this review, a description is given of the key properties of a MEMS resonator that determine the overall performance of a MEMS oscillator. Piezoelectric, capacitive and active resonator transduction methods are compared and their impact on oscillator noise and power dissipation is explained. An overview is given of the performance of MEMS resonators and MEMS-based oscillators that have been demonstrated to date. Mechanisms that affect the frequency stability of the resonator, such as temperature-induced frequency drift, are explained and an overview is given of methods that have been demonstrated to improve the frequency stability. The aforementioned performance indicators of MEMS-based oscillators are benchmarked against established quartz and CMOS technologies.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0960-1317/22/1/013001/pdf

A review of MEMS oscillators for frequency reference and timing applications

Wideband 100 kHz–4 GHz power sensors are presented, which are based on sensing the electrostatic force between an RF signal line and a suspended membrane. The electrostatic force, which is proportional to the square of the rms signal voltage and thus to the signal power, results in a displacement of the suspended membrane. This displacement is detected capacitively, allowing the sensing of the signal power with extremely low dissipative losses; therefore the sensor can be placed in a transmission line with negligible disturbance of the signal. Devices have been designed and fabricated successfully by aluminum surface micromachining using photoresist as the sacrificial layer. Optimization of the design with SONNET has resulted in measured return and insertion losses (S11 and S21) better than -30 dB and -0.15 dB, respectively, up to 4 GHz, and a sensitivity of 90 aF mW-1.

/pdf/a-capacitive-rf-power-sensor-based-on-mems-technology-3xe4ha48ti.pdf

A capacitive RF power sensor based on MEMS technology

This work presents a new class of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) resonator toward 60 GHz for the fifth-generation (5G) wireless communications. The wide range of the operating frequencies is achieved by resorting to different orders of the antisymmetric Lamb wave modes in a 400-nm-thick Z-cut lithium niobate thin film. The resonance of 55 GHz demonstrated in this work marks the highest operating frequency for piezoelectric electromechanical devices. The fabricated device shows an extracted mechanical $Q$ of 340 and an $f\times Q$ product of $1.87\times 10^{13}$ in a footprint of $2 \times 10^{-3}$ mm2. The performance has shown the strong potential of LiNbO3 antisymmetric mode devices for front-end applications in 5G high-band.

/pdf/10-60-ghz-electromechanical-resonators-using-thin-film-426lh8rzpr.pdf

10–60-GHz Electromechanical Resonators Using Thin-Film Lithium Niobate

This paper details the design and enhanced electrical transduction of a bulk acoustic mode resonator fabricated in a commercial foundry MEMS process utilizing 2.5 μm gaps. The I – V characteristics of electrically addressed silicon resonators are often dominated by capacitive parasitics, inherent to hybrid technologies. This paper benchmarks a variety of drive and detection principles for electrostatically driven square-extensional mode resonators operating in air via analytical models accompanied by measurements of fabricated devices with the primary aim of enhancing the ratio of the motional to feedthrough current at nominal operating voltages. In view of ultimately enhancing the motional to feedthrough current ratio, a new detection technique that combines second harmonic capacitive actuation and piezoresistive detection is presented herein. This new method is shown to outperform previously reported methods utilizing voltages as low as ±3 V in air, providing a promising solution for low voltage CMOS-MEMS integration. To elucidate the basis of this improvement in signal output from measured devices, an approximate analytical model for piezoresistive sensing specific to the resonator topology reported here is also developed and presented.

Methods for enhanced electrical transduction and characterization of micromechanical resonators

This paper demonstrates a 1.1 GHz MEMS resonator operating in fundamental mode occupying a chip area of only several mum2. To our knowledge this is the smallest and first fundamental mode Si resonator operating above 1 GHz. The resonator is excited by means of an electrostatic force and the mechanical motion is detected using the piezo-resistive properties of Si. The effective impedance at resonance is orders of magnitude lower than the impedance obtained using the more common capacitive or field effect read-out. More importantly, its effective impedance is in principle insensitive to uniform and directional geometric scaling.

Scalable 1.1 GHz fundamental mode piezo-resistive silicon MEMS resonator

This paper presents the implementation and test of prototype RF MEMS based voltage controlled oscillators (VCO) for space applications. RF MEMS tunable capacitors based on a dual gap architecture have been manufactured with a thin film technology on silicon and have demonstrated high tuning ratio (Cmax/Cmin ~ 4) and high Q factors (up to 100) with a good reproducibility. These tunable capacitors have been integrated as frequency tuning element in the LC tank of multi chip modules (MCM) VCO operating around 1.6 GHz with a tuning range greater than 16% and a phase noise as low as -125 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from the carrier

MEMS-based MCM VCO for space applications

Phyiscs for stable capacitive MEMS-based devices

A novel bulk mode MEMS resonator is presented where mechanical motion is detected using the piezoresistive properties of Si. The piezoresistive readout allows for a high transduction efficiency. The transconductance gm obtained in this manner can be many times higher than the admittance Ym obtained in MEMS resonators that use capacitive read-out. By means of a small signal model it is shown that the transconductance is insensitive to geometric scaling, which allows for the realization of miniature high frequency MEMS resonators and oscillators without performance reduction. The piezoresistive detection method is experimentally validated using a 10MHz bulk acoustic mode resonator processed on SOI. Even for a transduction gap as large as 1.3 mum, it is shown that the transconductance can be as high as 90 muS combined with a Q-factor of 125.000.

A 10MHz piezoresistive MEMS resonator with high Q

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MEMS-based MCM VCO for space applications

Phyiscs for stable capacitive MEMS-based devices

A 10MHz piezoresistive MEMS resonator with high Q