High output power 243 GHz voltage controlled oscillator in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS process

Abstract

A four-stage fundamental ring oscillator based on 130 nm SiGe HBT technology is reported. By utilising a novel ground wall decoupling structure as well as a step impedance conversion structure, the generated output power is optimised. The fundamental VCO has a measured peak output power of −1.4 dBm at 243 GHz. The output frequency could be tuned from 237.2 to 249.8 GHz with a tuning range of 5.18%. The core size of the oscillator is only 40 × 80 μm2. The peak DC-to-RF efficiency is 1.95% at a 0.94 V power supply. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed VCO achieves the highest output power compared with the other silicon-based fundamental oscillators over 200 GHz.