TY - JOUR
T1 - Suppression of the A-f-mediated noise at the top bifurcation point in a MEMS resonator with both hardening and softening hysteretic cycles
AU - Sobreviela, Guillermo
AU - Vidal-Álvarez, Gabriel
AU - Riverola, Martín
AU - Uranga, Arantxa
AU - Torres, Francesc
AU - Barniol, Núria
PY - 2017/4/1
Y1 - 2017/4/1
N2 - © 2017 Elsevier B.V. We study the nonlinear behavior of a microelectromechanical resonator implemented using the SilTerra MEMS on CMOS platform. The resonator shows, in a same frequency response, two hysteretic cycles of different origin: mechanical and electrical. We observe that, by increasing the resonator DC voltage, the resonator goes from having a purely mechanical (hardening) nonlinear response to a purely electrical (softening) one, experiencing a mixed regime where mechanical and electrical nonlinearities coexist and partially compensate. We explain how the compensation between nonlinearities can be used to improve the phase noise of an MEMS-based oscillator. Specifically, we show that it is possible to operate the resonator at the top bifurcation point, while at the same time suppressing the amplitude-mediated frequency noise.
AB - © 2017 Elsevier B.V. We study the nonlinear behavior of a microelectromechanical resonator implemented using the SilTerra MEMS on CMOS platform. The resonator shows, in a same frequency response, two hysteretic cycles of different origin: mechanical and electrical. We observe that, by increasing the resonator DC voltage, the resonator goes from having a purely mechanical (hardening) nonlinear response to a purely electrical (softening) one, experiencing a mixed regime where mechanical and electrical nonlinearities coexist and partially compensate. We explain how the compensation between nonlinearities can be used to improve the phase noise of an MEMS-based oscillator. Specifically, we show that it is possible to operate the resonator at the top bifurcation point, while at the same time suppressing the amplitude-mediated frequency noise.
KW - A-f effect
KW - Capacitive transduction
KW - Microelectromechanical systems
KW - Nonlinear resonators
KW - Nonlinearities compensation
KW - Oscillators
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2017.01.004
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2017.01.004
M3 - Article
VL - 256
SP - 59
EP - 65
ER -