A 10-GHz SiGe BiCMOS phase-locked-loop frequency synthesizer

A SiGe BiCMOS phase-locked-loop (ILL) circuit is presented. A maximum operational frequency of 10 GHz and a current consumption of 7.6 mA, i.e., 17 mW, is demonstrated. For a 9-mW low-power version, a maximum frequency of 4.7 GHz is determined. In a GSM direct conversion application, an in-band phase noise of -79 dBc/Hz at 2 kHz and a spurious suppression of -75 dBc at 400 kHz was measured at 3.4 GHz, which corresponds to a PLL phase noise floor of -214 dBc/Hz. For low-power applications, the PLL can be operated at supply voltages as low as 2.2 V and at RF input powers as low as -20 dBm while having a large output voltage range of 0.2 V to (V_cc-0.3 V). This demonstrates the speed and power advantage of the SiGe BiCMOS over Si BiCMOS and CMOS technologies for wireless communications