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Single-Resonator Dual-Frequency Thin-Film Piezoelectric-on-Substrate

Oscillator

Conference Paper  in  Electron Devices Meeting, 1988. IEDM '88. Technical Digest., International · January 2008
DOI: 10.1109/IEDM.2007.4418962 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 Single-Resonator Dual-Frequency Thin-Film Piezoelectric-on-Substrate Oscillator
Reza Abdolvand, Hossein Mirilavasani, and Farrokh Ayazi
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0250
now with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University

Abstract handling of the resonators, which in turn improves the close-

to-carrier as well as far-from-carrier phase-noise of the
This paper reports on the design and implementation of a sub- oscillator.
milliwatt dual-frequency oscillator that utilizes two high-Q In this work we explore a new characteristic of high-order
acoustic modes of an AlN-on-Si microresonator. While TPoS resonators that can be attractive for many applications
operating in atmospheric pressure, the microresonator shows such as multi-standard wireless transceivers, accurate sensors,
Qunloaded of 7100 at 35.5MHz, and 4000 at 105.7MHz and highly stabilized clock generators. Dual-mode excitation
corresponding to the first- and the third-order width- of quartz crystal resonators is a common practice in order to
extensional resonance modes. The measured Qunloaded iS
improved to 10100 in vacuum for the first-order resonance accurately compensate for environmental interferences [7].
mode. The phase-noise of a two-transistor oscillator circuit The dual-harmonic quartz oscillators are amongst the most
using this resonator at 1kHz offset from the carrier is - accurate temperature-compensated oscillators available in the
94dBc/Hz and -88dBc/Hz, for the low and high frequency market [7]. The principle of operation is based on using two
modes, respectively, with a far from carrier noise of - different resonance modes of a single quartz plate (for
143dBc/Hz. example first and third harmonics [8]); since the temperature
coefficient of frequency (TCF) for each mode is different, the
Introduction oscillator itself can be used as a very accurate temperature
sensor. However, in order to excite the crystal in two
One of the most anticipated steps in the evolution of frequencies, mode-suppression circuits are required in each
electronic microsystems is to integrate high-Q resonators oscillation loop to attenuate the signal which is amplified in
with electronics. This will give the system designers the the other loop. It will be shown that a high-order TPoS
opportunity of adding new features to future products without resonator can be easily excited in two harmonic modes using
paying substantial size and/or cost penalties. Recent progress a very simple scheme with minimal power consumption. This
in fabrication of capacitive micromechanical resonators has study may open new opportunities for TPoS oscillators to
raised hope for medium to high frequency miniaturized achieve higher level of accuracy while used as sensors and
oscillators that can replace quartz crystal in many clock generators.
applications [1-3]. However, the motional impedance of
capacitive resonators tends to increase rapidly with Operation Principle
frequency. In addition, they require relatively large dc A TPoS resonator is comprised of a thin-film piezoelectric
polarization voltages, deep-sub-micron air-gaps, and costly layer sandwiched between two metallic electrodes stacked on
vacuum packaging for operation. Moreover, their absolute
frequency accuracy and temperature stability could degrade top of a relatively thick silicon layer (Fig. 1).
at higher frequencies where the frequency determining device
features are small and conventional tuning mechanisms
become inefficient.
Piezoelectric resonators on the other hand feature some
advantages over capacitive devices at high frequencies. Their
motional impedance is reasonably small while operating at
atmospheric pressure. They do not require a dc polarization
voltage, and high-order lateral mode designs are less
susceptible to the process-induced critical size variation [4].
Also, including an oxide layer in the resonant structure of a
thin-film piezoelectric-on-substrate (TPoS) resonator has
proven effective in greatly improving the temperature
stability of these devices [5, 6]. The use of a low acoustic loss
substrate such as single crystal silicon in TPoS resonators Figure 1: The block diagram of the implement the dual-
provides for high Q values in air, and enhances the power frequency oscillator.

1-4244-0439-X/07/$25.00 c 2007 IEEE 419

The silicon layer forms the main body of the resonant fabrication process flow is essentially the same as the one
structure and the metal electrodes are patterned to match the developed in [5].
strain field in a targeted resonance mode shape. With a
careful electrode design, the coupling factor is optimized, and
the motional impedance of the resonator is minimized. For
the resonator used in this work, the top electrode is split into
two electrically isolated electrodes that resemble a three-
finger interdigitated transducer (Fig. 1). This pattern is
designed to match the periodic strain field pattern of a block
structure excited in its third width-extensional resonance
mode (Fig. 2.a).

Figure 3: The SEM of the AIN-on-Si microresonator used in this work.

Figure 2: Width-extensional resonance mode shapes of a rectangular silicon
plate simulated in FEMLAB; a) third-order b) first-order. The center-to-center finger pitch on this device is 40pm and
connection to the electrodes is in ground-signal-ground
When the resonator is excited in this mode-shape, opposite (GSG) configuration with 1 50ptm pitch size. All the
charges are accumulated on the two electrodes since the frequency response plots are measured by an E507 1C Agilent
strain polarity is changing from one finger to the other. network analyzer in a Lakeshore vacuum probe station with a
Therefore signal phase is reversed at resonance. The same heated chuck. The frequency response plots measured from
electrode pattern can also excite the first order resonance the device in air are shown in Fig. 4.
mode where strain field is uniform across the entire device
(Fig. 2.b). However, in this mode shape the input and output
signals are in-phase at resonance. This is in contrast with the
other thickness-mode resonators such as quartz crystal
excited in their odd harmonics which exhibit the same zero
signal phase-shift at all modes.
The above-mentioned characteristic of a high-order TPoS
resonator can be exploited to realize a dual-frequency
oscillator with a single resonator. Figure 1 shows a block
diagram of the designed architecture. Each amplification
stage shown in the figure introduces 1800 of phase shift.
Therefore, when only one amplification stage is included in
the oscillator loop, the sustained oscillation frequency
corresponds to the third-order resonance mode in which 1800
phase-shift will be introduced by the resonator. In contrast, if
both of the amplification stages are included in the loop, the
low frequency first-order mode will be sustained in which
input and output signals are in-phase at resonance. In this
scheme no precautions need to be taken for mode-suppression
as a result of the additional phase-shift in the third harmonic.

Implementation and Characterization

A. Micromechanical Device
A SEM of the TPoS resonator used in this paper is shown in
the SEM picture of Fig. 3. The resonator is fabricated on a
10pm-thick silicon-on-insulator SOI substrate. The Figure 4: The first and the third-order frequency response of the resonator
piezoelectric layer is a 1ltm thick sputtered AlN and the shown in the SEM of Fig. 3.

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The measurements are repeated in vacuum and results are B. Oscillator Circuit
shown in Fig. 5. As expected, the measured quality factors
are improved and the motional impedances are reduced, The schematic viewgraph of the designed two-stage amplifier
inversely proportional with the Q. However, the improvement is shown in Fig. 7. The first stage is a transimpedance
ratio for the lower frequency mode (10100/7200) is more amplifier (TIA) comprised of a single NPN transistor (fmax -

than what is observed for the higher frequency mode 70GHz) in common-emitter configuration. An emitter
(4500/4000), which indicates that the dominant loss degeneration resistor is used to improve the linearity while
mechanism at higher frequencies is not air damping. maintaining sufficient voltage headroom for improved far-
from-carrier phase-noise. The feedback resistor (10kQ)
eliminates the need for a separate biasing network and
improves the overall phase-noise performance of the
oscillator. The second stage is also a simple voltage amplifier
comprised of a single NPN transistor in common emitter
configuration. Each stage creates -1800 of phase shift as
required and the values of the resistors are carefully chosen to
minimize the power consumption. The required voltage gain
for the second stage is not large since the motional impedance
of the low frequency resonance mode is not much larger than
the high frequency resonance mode counterpart.

Figure 5: The first- and the third-order frequency response of the resonator in Figure 7: The schematic circuit ofthe dual-frequency oscillator
vacuum.
The measured waveform and phase-noise of the oscillator at
The frequency shift of the resonator with temperature for the the fundamental resonance frequency is shown in Fig. 8. The
two modes are measured and plotted as percentage measurements are carried out with an Agilent EE5500 phase-
normalized frequency change in Fig. 6. As shown, the TCF is noise analyzer. An external 50Q buffer is used to interface
slightly different for the two modes. This temperature the oscillator with the measurement unit.
characteristic is useful in a technique developed for accurate
measurement of the resonator temperature [8]. The oscillation at 35.5MHz in air starts with 0.86V supply
voltage and 330pA of current for the two stages combined.
0.18 Therefore, the power consumption of the circuit at oscillation
0.16 (35.5MHz) is <300ptW. The measured phase-noise density
0.14 plot and the waveform of the oscillator are shown in Fig. 8.
0.12
The phase-noise measurement is repeated in vacuum and the
0.1
t 0.08
result is overlapped on the plot in Fig. 8. The oscillation starts
0.06
at lower supply voltage (0.82V) in vacuum and the power
0.04 * fundamental mode _
consumption is reduced to 200ptW. Affected by the improved
0.02 * third harmonic quality factor of the resonator in vacuum, the close-to-carrier
phase-noise is also improved by -4dBc/Hz at 1kHz offset
27 37 47 57
Temp. (C)
67 77 87
from the carrier unlike the far-from-carrier phase-noise which
Figure 6: The percentage normalized frequency change with temperature for is limited by the external buffer.
the two resonance modes. The TCF values are -33ppm C and -28ppm/ C.

421
 BP E550) Absoll 1 Acknowledgment
A!zilent E > 500( Cail-iers. 35,5E+6
----------- I----------- ------- Authors would like to thank the staff in the Microelectronic
Research Center at Georgia Tech for their assistance. This
work was supported by DARPA under the Analog Spectral
d----r----1----4----------- --------
---__ Processors (ASP) program.
----------------------------i-'----- __

Conclusion
--------- -- - - - - 9 d BIclz-
A sub-milliwatt dual-frequency oscillator was reported that

j
------ v9 C/H -- utilizes the high-Q first and third-order width-extensional
resonance modes of an AlN-on-Si microresonator. As a result
Ail,
----------/ of signal phase-reversal at the higher-order mode in this
fIZ .-,----------- oscillator, unlike typical dual-mode quartz crystal oscillators
no mode-suppression circuitry was required. These simple
and low-power oscillators can be used as resonant sensors
Figure 8: The measured waveform and phase noise for the 35MHz oscillation
frequency in air and in vacuum. that are accurately compensated for environmental
interferences such as temperature and pressure. The power
When the circuit is switched to the single stage operation consumption for the oscillator circuit measured to be less
mode, the oscillation at 105.7MHz starts with 0.98V supply than 350OtW at both operation frequencies and as low as
voltage and 350pA current (Pm 340tW). The increased 200tW for the first mode in vacuum.
power consumption might seem to be counterintuitive after
leaving the second amplification stage out of the oscillation References
loop. This is explained by the higher required bandwidth, [1] K. Sundaresan, G. K. Ho, S. Pourkamali, F. Ayazi, "A low phase noise
which demands for a larger bias current. The measured 100MHz silicon BAW reference oscillator," Proc. IEEE Custom
phase-noise and the waveform of the oscillator at 105.7MHz Integrated Circuits Conference, Sept. 2006, pp.841-844
are presented in Fig. 9. [2] G.K. Ho, K. Sundaresan; S. Pourkamali, F. Ayazi, "Temperature
compensated IBAR reference oscillators," Proc. 19th IEEE International
HP E5500 Absol Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical System, (MEMS'06), Istanbul,
HIP O() t
AuilenltEi>OO C:aliern. 105,7E+6 |A
|<
Turkey, Jan. 2006, pp.910-913
[3] L. Yu-Wei, L. Seungbae, L. Sheng-Shian, Xie Yuan, R. Zeying, C.T.-C.
Nguyen, "Series-resonant VHF micromechanical resonator reference
oscillators," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol.39, no.12, pp.
2477-2491, Dec. 2004
[4] G. K. Ho, R. Abdolvand, and F. Ayazi, "High order composite bulk
acoustic resonators," Proc. 20th IEEE International Conference on
Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS07), Kobe, Japan, Jan. 2007,
pp. 791-794
-8
[5] R. Abdolvand, H. Mirilavassani, and F. Ayazi, "A low voltage
-1 1 0U - -- --------- -------------- ---- -- --- --X--
---
I----- --1-- temperature-stable micromechanical piezoelectric oscillator," Digest of
1 -- --- -- the 14th International Conference on Solid State Sensors, Actuators and
-8 -8 /H
--1

'O 1 Microsystems (Transducers'07), Lyon, France, June 2007, pp. 53-56

[6] R. Abdolvand, Z. Hao, F. Ayazi, "A temperature-compensated ZnO-on-
diamond resonant mass sensor," Proc. 5th IEEE Conference on Sensors,
2006, pp.1297-1300
[7] J. R. Vig, "Dual-mode oscillators for clocks and sensors," Procs.IEEE
Ultrasonics Symposium, 1999, vol.2, no., pp.859-868
Figure 9: The measured waveform and phase noise for the 105.7MHz [8] S. S. Schodowski, "Resonator self-temperature-sensing using a dual-
oscillation frequency in air. harmonic-mode crystal oscillator," Proc. of the 43rd Annual Symposium
on Frequency Control, Jun. 1989, pp.2-7
One important advantage of using TPoS resonators in
oscillator application is that despite their small size they
exhibit excellent power handling. Therefore, as opposed to
the capacitive micromechanical devices [1-3], automatic level
control (ALC) circuits are not required to guarantee
excitation of the resonator in the linear region. Therefore,
larger signal levels can be applied to the device and better
far-from-carrier noise density will result while using a simple
oscillator circuit with minimal power consumption in a
compact solution.

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