A very low phase noise SiGe VCO at X-band frequencies

Author

Dussopt, L. ; Rebeiz, G.M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA

fYear

2001

fDate

14-14 Sept. 2001

Firstpage

219

Lastpage

221

Abstract

The design and measurement of a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) at 9 GHz are described in this paper. The design of the oscillator is based on a reflection-type configuration using a packaged SiGe transistor (Siemens BFP 540F). The oscillation frequency is determined by a microstrip resonator integrated on a duroid substrate and tuned by a GaAs varactor diode (M/A-COM ML46580). A 150 MHz tuning range is obtained with an output power varying from 0 to 5 dBm. The phase noise is below -92 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset over the whole tuning bandwidth. This is, to our knowledge, one of the best phase noise performances from a SiGe VCO using a plastic packaged device at X-band frequencies.

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; circuit noise; circuit tuning; microstrip resonators; microwave oscillators; phase noise; plastic packaging; semiconductor device packaging; semiconductor materials; varactors; voltage-controlled oscillators; 5.2 to 10.9 GHz; 9 GHz; GaAs; GaAs varactor diode tuning; SiGe; SiGe VCO; VCO design; VCO measurement; X-band frequencies; duroid substrate; integrated microstrip resonator; oscillation frequency; output power; packaged SiGe transistor; phase noise; phase noise performance; plastic packaged device; reflection-type configuration; tuning bandwidth; tuning range; very low phase noise SiGe VCO; voltage controlled oscillator; Frequency; Gallium arsenide; Germanium silicon alloys; Microstrip resonators; Packaging; Phase noise; Silicon germanium; Tuning; Voltage measurement; Voltage-controlled oscillators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems, 2001. Digest of Papers. 2001 Topical Meeting on

Conference_Location

Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7129-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SMIC.2001.942369

Filename

942369