Miniaturized VCOs arm configurable synthesizers

The reported miniaturized VCOs overcome the limitation of the past attempt to combine phase-locked-loop (PLL) in tiny package (0.6 times 0.6 inches) for multi-band and multi-mode operations. Shrinking the size of planar resonators employing hybrid coupling mechanism has led to tiny (0.3 times 0.3 inches) VCOs that arms the low-cost and configurable frequency synthesizers. The typical measured phase noise @ 1 MHz for 1-4 GHz synthesizer is -128 dBc/Hz with 5 V, 30 mA. The settling time is less than 1 millisecond and not limited to this frequency, can be extended from 100 MHz to 12 GHz.