Exploiting Time-Domain Approach for Extremely High $Q$ -Factor Measurement

Based on the principle of time-domain quality factor (Q-factor) measurement, we have proposed a physically realizable architecture that is CMOS compatible. As a result, one can potentially integrate our architecture on the same chip as the resonating device to be measured. To evaluate the potential of the proposed architecture and especially to guide the design of such architecture, a theoretical analysis linking the required accuracy and the given Q-factor to the circuit parameters has been developed for the first time in this paper. The analysis results have revealed that the proposed architecture can measure a Q-factor as high as 10
⁶
, i.e., in the order of Quartz-based resonators. The obtained analysis results have been confirmed by the experimental results performed on a printed circuit board. Moreover, to be able to measure a high Q-factor with a shorter measurement time, a new measurement scheme has also been proposed for the first time in this paper.