METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING A SIGNAL HAVING AT LEASTONE DESIRED OUTPUT FREQUENCY UTILIZING A BANK OF VIBRATING MICROMECHANICAL DEVICES

摘要

Several MEMS-based methods and architectures which utilize vibrating micromechanical resonators in circuits to implement filtering, mixing, frequency reference and amplifying functions are provided. A method and apparatus are shown for generating a signal having at least one desired outp ut frequency such as LO frequency in an RF subsystem in response to a tuning voltage and without the need for a phase-locking circuit. One of the primary benefits of the use of such architectures is a savings in power consumption by trading power for high selectivity (i.e., high Q). Consequently, the present invention relies on the use of a large number of micromechanical links in SS I networks to implement signal processing functions with basically zero DC pow er consumption.