A Method for the on Wafer Characterization of Microwave Oscillators

In recent developments microwave components and subsystems are mostly integrated monolithically, for instance on a GaAs wafer. For easy and reliable description of such circuits on wafer probing techniques must be applied. In the following characterization of integrated oscillators using these techniques will be focused. At first, frequency and power of every relevant harmonic of the oscillator should be measured up to 60 GHz. Furthermore, near carrier noise is a very important parameter of such a subsystem, which should be analyzed. If one has to measure a tunable oscillator, the frequency tuning characteristics like slewing rate and settling time are also important specifications to be verified.