3.3-GHz Voltage-Controlled Oscillator with 2.13% Tuning Range Based on A1-Mode LiNbO3 Lamb-Wave Resonator

This paper reports on the first demonstration of a 3.3-GHz CMOS oscillator based on a lithium niobate (LiNbO3) thin-film first-order antisymmetric (A1) Lamb wave mode resonator (LWR). The resonator exhibits a high electromechanical coupling coefficient (k²) of 44%. It was wire-bonded to a CMOS amplifier chip to demonstrate a voltage-controlled MEMS oscillator (VCMO) with a tuning range of 2.13% at 3.3 GHz. The CMOS circuit was fabricated using the TSMC 65 nm process. The measured phase noise at 1 MHz offset from the 3.2948 GHz carrier is -130.2 dBc/Hz, and the circuit consumes 1.18 mA from a 1 V power supply. The demonstrated VCMO achieves the highest tuning range based figure of merit (FoM^T) when compared to other high frequency VCMOs.