A SiGe-Based D-Band Fundamental-Wave VCO with 9 dBm Output Power and -185 dBc/Hz FoMT

Description

The design and measurement results of a fully-differential fundamental-wave VCO based on the Colpitts topology are presented. The circuit is realized in a 0.13-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology with a maximum oscillation frequency of 300 GHz. Design measures taken to minimize phase noise and to achieve high output power without using any output buffer are discussed. Operating at a supply voltage of 3.3V, on-wafer measurements show a tuning range of around 12 GHz from 147 to 159 GHz. The circuit achieves a maximum output power of 9 dBm (at 3.3V) and 9.8 dBm (at 3.6 V), both with an efficiency of around 6% and consumes a DC power of 132 mW and 164 mW, respectively. The average measured phase noise of the VCO over the entire tuning range is -92 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset, with a minimum phase noise of -96 dBc/Hz around 157GHz. The VCO demonstrates state-of-the-art performance in D-Band both in terms of output power and phase noise.

Period	23 Dec 2015
Event title	IEEE Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Symposium (CSICS), 2015
Event type	Conference
Location	United StatesShow on map