A Ku-Band Low-Phase-Noise Cross-Coupled VCO in GaAs HBT Technology

作者:Zhang, Jincan; Zhang, Yuming; Lu, Hongliang*; Zhang, Yimen; Liu, Bo; Zhang, Leiming; Wang, Jinchan; Zhang, Liwen
来源:Journal of Circuits, Systems, and Computers, 2016, 25(6): 1650053.
DOI:10.1142/S0218126616500535

摘要

In this paper, a fully integrated Ku-band voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with low phase noise is presented in a GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. A cross-coupled configuration is employed to achieve low phase noise, and to achieve high output power, the largest HBT and higher bias current are adopted. The implemented VCO demonstrates that the oscillation frequency is from 13.77 GHz to 14.8 GHz, with a maximum 4.83 dBm output power at 13.77 GHz. The phase noise of the VCO is -100.2 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset from 14.36 GHz oscillation frequency. The VCO consumes 61.2 mW from 6V supply and occupies an area of 0.51 mm x 0.62 mm. Finally, the figure-of-merits (FOMs) for VCOs are discussed.