Impact of substrate perturbation on a 5 GHz VCO spectrum

This work investigates substrate coupling effects in mixed IC´s, especially the perturbations on RF block. The authors present the impact of low frequency substrate noise perturbations on voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) spectrum. A 5 GHz VCO test-chip is presented; several substrate taps have been placed inside VCO core to measure or to inject noise perturbations. The oscillation frequency sensitivity function of tuning voltage or bias current and spurious side-bands due to injected noise are measured to find out a relation between substrate noise and spectrum purity. Finally, a significant link between such device sensitivity functions and VCO spurs magnitude is demonstrated.