On noise analysis of oscillators based on statistical mechanics

In this paper a new approach of thermal noise analysis of electronic oscillators is presented. Although nonlinear electronic oscillators are one of the most essential subcircuits in electronic systems typical design concepts for these oscillators based on ideas of linear circuits. Because the functionality of oscillators depends on nonlinearities, advanced design methods are developed where nonlinearities are an integral part. Since low voltage oscillator concepts have to be developed in modern IC technologies there is a need to include at least thermal noise aspects into the design flow. For this reason we developed new physical descriptions of thermal noise in electronic oscillators where we use ideas from nonequilibrium statistical mechanics as well as the Langevin approach. We illustrate our concepts by some examples.