A Sub-100 $\mu{\rm W}$ Ku-Band RTD VCO for Extremely Low Power Applications

This letter presents the microwave performance of a sub-100 ??W Ku-band differential-mode resonant tunneling diode (RTD)-based voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with an extremely low power consumption of 87 ??W using an InP-based RTD/HBT MMIC technology. In order to achieve the extremely low-power Ku-band RTD VCO, the device size of RTD is scaled down to 0.6 ?? 0.6 ??m². The obtained dc power consumption of 87 ??W is found to be only 1/18 of the conventional-type MMIC VCOs reported in the Ku-band. The fabricated RTD VCO has a phase noise of -100.3 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency and a tuning range of 140 MHz with the figure-of-merit (FOM) of -194.3 dBc/Hz.