COMPOUND SPRING MEMS RESONATORS FOR FREQUENCY AND TIMING GENERATION

• Main Author: CLARK JOHN RYAN
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 28.04.2016
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRONIC CIRCUITRY; CONVERSION OR DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRIC POWER; ELECTRIC MACHINES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; GENERATION; IMPEDANCE NETWORKS, e.g. RESONANT CIRCUITS; RESONATORS

A compound spring MEMS resonator includes a resonator body constructed using one or more spring unit cells forming a compound spring block and one or more compound spring blocks forming the resonator body. Each compound spring block is anchored at nodal points to ensure a high quality factor. The resonator body further includes masses attached to the open ends of the compound spring block and capacitively coupled to drive/sense electrodes. The dimensions of the spring unit cells, the number of spring unit cells for a compound spring block, the size and weight of the masses, and the length and width of the support beams are selected to realize a desired resonant frequency. Meanwhile, the number of compound spring blocks is selected to tune the desired electrical characteristics, such as impedance, of the MEMS resonator.