A Low Phase-Noise W-Band VCO in 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS

Abstract

This paper presents a voltage controlled oscillator operating in the W-band with low phase noise and high output power. The proposed VCO adopts a differential common collector structure where the output is not directly connected to the resonant circuit, so the effect of capacitance at the output node on the resonant circuit can be disregarded. A combination of tail current noise optimization and resonant network filtering techniques are also used to improve phase noise. The voltage-controlled oscillator is designed using a 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS process and generates a W-band output signal of 89.5~92.2 GHz, corresponding to a control voltage that varies within 0~3 V. Under the condition that the supply voltage is 2.5 V, the VCO achieves a phase noise of -102.6 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency and an output power of 3.33 dBm in a core area of 0.25 × 0.28 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> .