Clark T.-C. Nguyen (Advisor)

Research Advised by Professor Clark T.-C. Nguyen

Nguyen Group:  List of Projects | List of Researchers

Frequency Tunable MEMS-Based Timing Oscillators and Narrowband Filters

Henry Barrow
Clark T.-C. Nguyen
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Liwei Lin
2015

Both the accuracy of the clocks and ability of filters to achieve bandwidths small enough to select individual channels depend heavily on the accuracy and precision to which the frequency-setting devices they rely on are constructed. Inevitably, fabrication tolerances are finite, which means the ability to attain the highest performance relies on trimming or tuning. This dissertation focuses on methods by which voltage-controlled frequency tuning of capacitively-transduced micromechanical resonators make possible 1) an ultra-compact, low-power 32.768-kHz micromechanical clock...

Mehmet Akgul

Alumni
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Professor Clark T.-C. Nguyen (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2015

A Micromechanical RF Channelizer

Mehmet Akgul
2015

The power consumption of a radio generally goes as the number and strength of the RF signals it must process. In particular, a radio receiver would consume much less power if the signal presented to its electronics contained only the desired signal in a tiny percent bandwidth frequency channel, rather than the typical mix of signals containing unwanted energy outside the desired channel. Unfortunately, a lack of filters capable of selecting single channel bandwidths at RF forces the front-ends of contemporary receivers to accept unwanted signals, and thus, to operate with sub-optimal...

BPN436: Limits to Micromechanical Resonator Performance

Ilya Gurin
2009

This overall project aims to explore the ultimate performance (e.g., phase noise in oscillators, insertion loss in filters) attainable by micromechanical circuits as dictated by physical limitations.

Project end date: 08/07/09

BPN405: Manufacturing Repeatability of the Frequency and Q of Capacitive Micromechanical Disk Resonators

Yang Lin
2009

The long-term goal of this project is to devise methods for improving the untrimmed repeatability of micromechanical resonators so as to widen the breadth of applications addressable by such devices.

Project end date: 08/11/09

BPN464: Wafer-scale Heterogeneous Assembly of Highly Ordered Semiconductor Nanowire Arrays by Contact Printing

Toshitake Takahashi
Kuniharu Takei
Zhiyong Fan
Johnny C. Ho
Alexandra L. Ford
2010

We have achieved wafer-scale assembly of highly ordered arrays of NWs through a simple contact printing method which yielded high uniformity and reproducibility. In the assembled NW arrays, NW density was readily modulated through the surface chemical treatment of the receiver substrate. We have demonstrated that our printing approach is generic and a wide range of semiconductor NWs have been successfully assembled and integrated at large-scale. More importantly, we have developed nanowire roll printing to demonstrate the potential of a roll-to-roll nanowire printing process for...

BPN431: Levitated Micromechanical Resonators

Ilya Gurin
2009

This project aims to develop levitated ultra-high-Q micromechanical resonators based upon the principle of diamagnetism and/or electrostatics. These magnetic and electrostatic actuation schemes obviate the need for supports, thereby eliminating design-imposed anchor-to-substrate energy loss mechanisms and perhaps revealing the intrinsic Q of resonator materials. In addition, on-chip signal-conditioning circuitry will be developed and integrated together with resonators, providing precise control over the lateral position of the resonators.

Project end date: 01/28/...

BPN546: Fully-Integrated Cell Phone Reference Oscillator

Thura Lin Naing
2010

This project aims to achieve a fully integrated MEMS reference oscillator for cell phones, particularly the GSM standard. Integrating reference oscillators on chips reduces production cost significantly while, at the same time, MEMS resonators are able to maintain the same performance as in the current off-chip quartz-based oscillator. Low-temperature metal process for MEMS structures will be developed in order to integrate MEMS with MOS devices. In addition, phase noise performance of -117dBc/Hz at 1-kHz offset from a 60-MHz carrier and -137dBc/Hz at far-from-carrier offsets will be...

BPN432: Micromechanical Resonant Displacement Gain Stages

Bongsang Kim
2009

This overall project aims to apply mechanical displacement amplification for MEMS resonators to improve the performance of various analog and digital signal processors in RF MEMS devices. These performance benefits will be investigated by analytical models and numerical simulations as well as fabrication and experimental verification.

Project end date: 01/29/10

BPN437: A Low-Power Receiver Employing RF Channel-Selection

Jesse Richmond
2010

The performance of traditional wireless receivers is limited in a large part by the lack of a narrow bandwidth, low loss, and reconfigurable filter at the RF bandwidth, which leads to designers needing to use circuit techniques to ensure adequate linearity and allow channel selection. This project aims to make use of recent developments in high quality micromechanical resonators to enable new circuit designs featuring ultra-low power consumption and an extremely small size. The receiver will be based around an array of filters to perform sub-carrier separation and allow a multi-tone...