A Low Phase Noise VCO Based on Substrate-Integrated Suspended Line Technology

Abstract

This letter presents a low phase noise voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) based on substrate-integrated suspended line (SISL) technology. With the proposed SISL technology, high-Q resonators and inductors can be realized to improve the phase noise performance. In addition, a transformed radial stub resonator is adopted to stabilize frequency and to make the circuit compact at the same time. The designed VCO achieved a phase noise of −132 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset from a 4.16-GHz carrier with an output power around 4.6 dBm. And the VCO size is only $28.94 \times 20.75$ mm2. Compared to other board level VCOs, this design has low phase noise, low power consumption, and compact size with the features of self-package simultaneously.