Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Behzad Razavi
M
Most electronic systems rely on a pre- oscillators have found new impor-
cise reference frequency or time base 15
13
tance for their low phase noise in
12
for their operation. Examples include 14 addition to their long-term frequency
4 19 16 20
wireless and wireline communication 5 stability. The low temperature coeffi-
transceivers, computing devices, instru- 1 17 18 21 cient of crystals also proves critical
mentation, and the electronic watch. in most applications.
The crystal oscillator has served this 6
2 3
purpose for nearly a century. In this 22 Crystal Model
article, we study the design principles For circuit design purposes, we need
of this circuit. Figure 1: Cady’s crystal oscillator. an electrical model of the electrome-
chanical crystal. The mechanical res-
Brief History onance is fundamentally represented
In 1880, Pierre and Jacques Curie dis- high-precision time-base circuit moti- by a series RLC branch, with a resistor
covered “piezoelectricity” [1], namely, vated extensive studies on crystal modeling the loss [Figure 3(a)]. These
the ability of a device to generate a oscillators in that time frame [5], [7]. components are called the “motional”
voltage if subjected to mechanical In addition to a precise resonance resistance, inductance, and capaci-
force. In 1881, Lippman predicted frequency, piezoelectric devices ex tance of the crystal, respectively. With
that a converse effect must also exist, hibit extremely high quality factors this series branch, the crystal can act
which was confirmed by the Curies (Qs), a property that has proved as a short circuit at resonance. In addi-
shortly thereafter [1]. essential in communication trans- tion, since the crystal is formed by
The use of a piezoelectric device— ceivers. While resonance frequency two parallel plates, a parallel capaci-
a “crystal”—to define the oscillation drifts can be eventually compensated tance must also be included. The load
frequency of a circuit can be traced as the received signal is processed, capacitance presented to the crystal
to Cady’s 1922 paper [2]. Cady pro- the phase noise of the crystal oscil- by the printed circuit board and other
poses the oscillator shown in Fig- lator cannot. In other words, crystal devices can also be absorbed by C P .
ure 1, which applies feedback around
a three-stage amplifier through two
coupled piezoelectric resonators. 256 +V
Crystal oscillators continued to 250
advance in the ensuing decades, natu- R2 252
rally migrating to bipolar and, even- 268 S
P
tually, MOS technologies. The interest
D 260
in such oscillators was rekindled with T1 a1 F
254
the conception of the electronic watch F
D
in the 1960s and 1970s. In Figure 2, (a) – C1 N
P 258
shows a MOS realization reported by
259
+ S
Luscher as prior art in a patent filed Q 262
in 1969 [3], and (b) depicts a more
familiar structure that dates back to R1 C2 264
a patent filed by Walton in 1970 [4]. 266
The need for an extremely low-power, a2
(a) (b)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2017.2688679
Date of publication: 21 June 2017 Figure 2: The MOS crystal oscillators patented by (a) Luscher and (b) Walton.
CP 1 + 1 + gm
C1 Z XY = , (2)
Zcr Zcr CX s CY s CX CY s2
L1
which, for s = j~, reduces to a series
branch consisting of C X , C Y , and a nega-
ωs ωp ω
tive resistance equal to - g m / (C X C Y ~ 2)
(a) (b) [Figure 4(b)]. For the circuit to oscil-
late, this resistance must cancel the
Figure 3: (a) A crystal model and (b) a crystal impedance plot showing series and parallel crystal’s loss. To arrive at a simple
resonance frequencies. start-up condition, we compute the
real part of the impedance Z 1 in Fig-
ure 4(b) as [8]
VDD
Rs
Re {Z 1} =
C1
M2
CX CY - gm CX CY
L1
Rb ,
x Rs (g m C P ) 2 + (C X C Y + C X C P + C P C Y ) 2 ~ 2
CP
C1 CP –gm (3)
y Z1 M1 CX
M1 Cx L1 CX CY ω 2 CY
Cy
where ~ denotes the oscillation
(a) (b) (c) frequency. Interestingly, this resis-
tance is a nonmonotonic function of
Figure 4: (a) A three-point oscillator consisting of a crystal and a negative resistance, (b) an
equivalent circuit of (a), and (c) a complete oscillator using an inverter. g m, reaching a maximum if [8]
g m = c C X + C Y + C X C Y m ~.(4)
CP
The series resonator devices, L 1 1/ L 1 C 1 C P / (C 1 + C P ) [Figure 3(b)].
and C 1, in Figure 3(a) have peculiar These can also be obtained by neglect- Since Re {Z 1} appears in series with
values, e.g., C 1 . 5 fF, L 1 . 50 mH ing R S and writing L 1, C 1, and R S , we simply equate its
for a series resonance frequency of magnitude to R S , obtaining the oscil-
10 MHz. This is because the quality Z cr . L1 C1 s2 + 1 .(1) lation condition as [8]
factor, Q = (L 1 ~) /R S , reaches several L1 C1 CP s2 + C1 + CP
(C X C Y + C X C P + C Y C P ) 2
thousand to several hundred thousand, g m,crit = ~ ,
QC 1 CX CY
translating to large inductance values. Since C 1 % C P , we have ~ p . ~ s (5)
The value of C 1 is much less than C P , [1 + C 1 / (2C P )]; that is, the two fre- where Q = 1/ (R S C 1 ~) .
which is in the picofarad range. quencies differ by less than 1%. As The core amplifier of the oscillator
The network shown in Figure 3(a) explained below, typical oscillators is typically configured as a self-biased
exhibits a series resonance fre- operate at ~ p . An important attribute of inverter [Figure 4(c)]. The feedb ack
quency, ~ s = 1/ L 1 C 1 , and a par- the crystal is that tolerances in C P only resistor, R b, must be chosen large
allel resonance frequency, ~ p = negligibly affect ~ p . For example, with enough not to degrade the crystal
C 1 = 5 fF and C P = 2 pF, an error of 10% Q significantly.
in C P translates to a 0.01% change in It is interesting to explain why the
RS
~ p . On the other hand, this low sensi- topology of Figure 4(a) does not oscil-
tivity also means that the crystal oscil- late at the crystal’s series resonance
lator can be tuned only over a very frequency. Suppose it does. Then, the
X narrow range by varying C P . circuit reduces to that shown in Fig-
CP
ure 5. It can be proved that the phase
Basic Crystal Oscillator shift around this loop is nonzero at
If the crystal resonator in Figure 3(a) any frequency, thereby prohibiting
Y M1 CX is attached to a negative resistan oscillation in this mode.
CY ce, its loss can be compensated
and oscillation can be sustained. A Start-Up Time
common approach employs the The very high Q of crystals leads to
Figure 5: An equivalent circuit of a three- “three-point” oscillator shown in a long start-up time. Of course, the ac-
point oscillator in the case of series resonance. Figure 4(a). The one-port network tual oscillation growth rate is given by