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US 9,000,854 B1Granted
Timing oscillator having a non-linear MEMS resonator and related methods
AssigneeSand 9, Inc.
InventorPritiraj Mohanty
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Oscillators including mechanical resonators are described, as are methods of operating the oscillators such that the mechanical resonator exhibits non-linear behavior. The non-linear behavior may include multiple stable states, for instance being bi-stable. The non-linear behavior may exhibit hysteresis. The mechanical resonator may be driven to operate in a desired portion of the non-linear operating regime.
Claims25
A method of operating a timing oscillator, the method comprising:
- driving a temperature-compensated mechanical resonator of the timing oscillator such that the temperature-compensated mechanical resonator operates in a non-linear regime and, simultaneously, maintaining a substantially constant resonance frequency of the temperature-compensated mechanical resonator while varying a temperature of the temperature-compensated mechanical resonator.
A timing oscillator comprising:
- a temperature-compensated mechanical resonator comprising a piezoelectric active layer and a multi-layer temperature compensation structure;
- and
- a drive circuit configured to provide an input signal to drive the temperature-compensated mechanical resonator in a non-linear regime.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.