Duty-cycled phase shifter for angular rate sensor

A method comprising:

• actuating, by a drive circuit of a sensor, a mechanical resonator into resonant vibration;
• generating, by a sense circuit of the sensor, a sense signal having an in-phase signal component and a quadrature signal component, the sense circuit mechanically coupled to the mechanical resonator;
• generating, by a duty-cycled phase shifter circuit of the sensor, a duty-cycled clock using a reference clock, the duty-cycled clock having an average time delay resolution and the reference clock having a time delay resolution, where the average time delay resolution of the duty-cycled clock is higher than the time delay resolution of the reference clock;
• and
• demodulating, by a demodulator circuit of the sensor, the sense signal using the duty-cycled clock to separate the in-phase signal component from the quadrature signal component.

A system comprising:

• means for actuating a mechanical resonator into resonant vibration;
• means for generating a sense signal in response to displacement of resonating mechanical resonator, the sense signal having an in-phase signal component and a quadrature signal component;
• means for generating a duty-cycled clock from a reference clock, the duty-cycled clock having an average time delay resolution and the reference clock having a time delay resolution, where the average time delay resolution is higher than the time delay resolution;
• and
• means for demodulating the sense signal using the duty-cycled clock to separate the in-phase signal component from the quadrature signal component.