Electronically Temperature Compensated Silicon Bulk Acoustic Resonator Reference Oscillators

The paper describes the design and implementation of an electronically temperature compensated reference oscillator based on capacitive silicon micromechanical resonators. The design of a 5.5-MHz silicon bulk acoustic resonator has been optimized to offer high quality factor (> 100 000) while maintaining tunability in excess of 3000 ppm for fine-tuning and temperature compensation. Oscillations are sustained with a CMOS amplifier. When interfaced with the temperature compensating bias circuit, the oscillator exhibits a frequency drift of 39 ppm over 100degC as compared to an uncompensated frequency drift of 2830 ppm over the same range. The sustaining amplifier and compensation circuitry were fabricated in a 2P3M 0.6-mum CMOS process.