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A Ku-Band Low-Phase-Noise Wide-Tuning-Range VCO in SiGe BiCMOS Technology

Xiangmin Li 1, Zhuang Kang 1, and Liang Jia 2
1. Yangtze University College of Arts and Sciences, Jingzhou, China
2. School of Microelectronics and Solid-State Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China

Abstract—In this paper, design and fabrication of a Ku-band voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) using commercially available 0.18 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology is presented. To achieve the low phase noise, the VCO employs a gm-boosted configuration which is a combination of cross coupled VCO and balanced Colpitts VCO, and the VCO simultaneously achieves wide tuning range. The tested results show that the VCO exhibits a phase noise of –116.2 dBc/Hz at a 1 MHz offset and presents a tuning range from 12.82 GHz to 14.28 GHz. The overall dc current consumption of the VCO is 2.1 mA with a supply voltage 1.8 V. The chip area of the VCO is 0.92×0.91 mm2.

Index Terms—Voltage controlled oscillator, SiGe BiCMOS, Ku band, wide tuning range, low phase noise

Cite: Xiangmin Li, Zhuang Kang, and Liang Jia, "A Ku-Band Low-Phase-Noise Wide-Tuning-Range VCO in SiGe BiCMOS Technology," Journal of Communications, vol. 11, no. 12, pp. 1102-1105, 2016. Doi: 10.12720/jcm.11.12.1102-1105