A 32 MHz Crystal Oscillator with Fast Start-Up Using Dithered Injection and Negative Resistance Boost

This work presents a fast start-up 32 MHz crystal oscillator for low power wireless transceivers. A highly efficient start-up technique combining dithered frequency injection and a negative resistance boost is proposed to reduce start-up time while maintaining low start-up energy. In measurements the proposed technique achieves a start-up time of 32.7 μs with 31.7 nJ startup energy enabling low power consumption in latency-driven applications. In steady state operation the oscillator has a power consumption of 181.6 μW. The circuit area of the proposed crystal oscillator is 0.058 mm2 in a 130 nm RF CMOS technology.