A real-time 32.768-kHz clock oscillator using a 0.0154-mm2 micromechanical resonator frequency-setting element

A capacitive-comb transduced micromechanical resonator using aggressive lithography to occupy only 0.0154-mm² of die area has been combined via bond-wiring with a custom ASIC sustaining amplifier and a supply voltage of only 1.65V to realize a 32.768-kHz real-time clock oscillator more than 100× smaller by area than miniaturized quartz crystal implementations and at least 4× smaller than other MEMS-based approaches, including those using piezoelectric material. The key to achieving such large reductions in size is the enormous rate at which scaling improves the performance of capacitive-comb transduced folded-beam micromechanical resonators, for which scaling of lateral dimensions by a factor S provides an S²× reduction in both motional resistance and footprint for a given resonance frequency. This is a very strong dependency that raises eyebrows, since the size of the frequency-setting tank element may soon become the most important attribute governing cost in a potential MEMS-based or otherwise batch-fabricated 32.768-kHz timing oscillator market. In addition, unlike quartz counterparts, the size reduction demonstrated here actually reduces power consumption, allowing this oscillator to operate with only 2.1μW of DC power.