Low power transmitter oscillator circuits and methods

Abstract

A fast startup power oscillator transmitter includes a transistor pair that drives a resonant circuit including a tunable capacitance. A capacitor array preferably forms the tunable capacitance. A voltage booster activates the capacitor array. A clamped body bias voltage booster can set the body bias voltage of the transistor pair in one circuit. Control circuitry activates the resonant circuit through a triode-mode switch transistor in response to an input in a range of 0.3-0.6V, and preferably while controlling the substrate bias voltage of the transistor pair to increase transconductance of the cross-coupled transistor pair. In a variation, a circuit pushes a top plate voltage of one of the two capacitors to 2VDD and pulls the top plate voltage of the other to zero to give the oscillator an initial condition. In a variation, a shaped pulse drives the transistor pair to switch to a class D oscillator mode, and the triode mode switch transistor is only turned on when the oscillation signal voltage is in the range of 0.3-0.6V.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.