An X-Band Carbon-Doped InGaP/GaAs Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor MMIC Oscillator

Abstract

This paper addresses a fully-integrated low phase noise X-band oscillator fabricated using a carbon-doped InGaP heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) GaAs process with a cutoff frequency of 53.2 GHz and maximum oscillation frequency of 70 GHz. The oscillator circuit consists of a negative resistance generating circuit with a base inductor, a resonating emitter circuit with a microstrip line, and a buffering resistive collector circuit with a tuning diode. The oscillator exhibits 4.33 dBm output power and achieves −127.8 dBc/Hz phase noise at 100 kHz away from a 10.39 GHz oscillating frequency, which benchmarks the lowest reported phase noise achieved for a monolithic X-band oscillator. The oscillator draws a 36 mA current from a 6.19 V supply with 47.1 MHz of frequency tuning range using a 4 V change. It occupies a 0.8 mm × 0.8 mm die area.