AN OSCILLATOR CIRCUIT FOR ELECTROSTATICALLY DRIVEN SILICON-BASED ONE-PORT RESONATORS

This paper describes design considerations and characteristics of osci llator circuitry for electrostatically driven silicon-based one-pea re sonators, used as resonant strain gauges. The oscillation conditions f or a general, single transconductance oscillator are theoretically der ived. In order to start oscillation, guidelines to select proper bias conditions for the resonator are presented, taking the non-linear effe cts into account. An oscillator circuit has been designed in CMOS tech nology in order to verify the theory experimentally. Experimental resu lts of the oscillator in combination with a silicon beam resonator are given.