A 18-GHz silicon bipolar VCO with transformer-based resonator

Author

Scuderi, Angelo ; Ragonese, Egidio ; Biondi, Tonio ; Palmisano, Giuseppe

Author_Institution

Facolta di Ingegneria, Universita di Catania

fYear

2006

fDate

11-13 June 2006

Abstract

A silicon bipolar voltage-controlled oscillator for 17-GHz ISM band is presented. The VCO is composed of a core oscillating at 9 GHz followed by a frequency doubler. It adopts a transformer-based topology to obtain both wide tuning range and low noise performance. The VCO exhibits a tuning range of 4.1 GHz from 16.4 to 20.5 GHz and a phase noise as low as -109 dBc/Hz at a 1-MHz frequency offset from a carrier of 18.5 GHz. To design and optimize the resonator, a lumped scalable model for differentially driven inductors and transformers was used. This model is presented and validated up to 20 GHz by comparison with experimental data

Keywords

bipolar transistor circuits; frequency multipliers; microwave oscillators; resonators; silicon; transformers; voltage-controlled oscillators; 1 MHz; 16.4 to 20.5 GHz; 4.1 GHz; 9 GHz; ISM band; frequency doubler; lumped scalable model; silicon bipolar VCO; transformer topology; Coils; Design optimization; Fabrication; Frequency; Inductors; Silicon; Topology; Transformers; Tuning; Voltage-controlled oscillators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium, 2006 IEEE

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9572-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RFIC.2006.1651186

Filename

1651186