A 312GHz fourth-harmonic voltage-controlled oscillator in 130nm SiGe BiCMOS technology

Author

Lin, Yang ; Kotecki, David E.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of Maine, Qrono, ME, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

13-16 Dec. 2009

Firstpage

747

Lastpage

750

Abstract

Terahertz (> 300 GHz) voltage-controlled oscillators (VCO) are envisioned for applications in remote sensing, advanced imaging and telecommunication. In this paper, simulation results of a fourth-harmonic VCO are presented. The VCO has a tuning range from 312.11 to 312.67 GHz (0.18%), consumes 58.07 mW of power and generates -62.4 dBm (575.4 pW) of output power into a 50 Ohm load. The phase noise is ~ -86.2 dBc/Hz with 10 MHz offset frequency. The microchip area is 450 Â¿m Ã— 340 Â¿m. A 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology is utilized for the high f_T (> 200 GHz) and f_max (> 280 GHz) of the NPN transistors. This VCO provides the highest output frequency with lumped oscillation topology in SiGe process reported till now.

Keywords

BiCMOS integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; integrated circuit layout; lumped parameter networks; submillimetre wave oscillators; voltage-controlled oscillators; BiCMOS technology; NPN transistors; SiGe; advanced imaging application; fourth-harmonic VCO; fourth-harmonic voltage-controlled oscillator; frequency 312 GHz; frequency 312.11 GHz to 312.67 GHz; lumped oscillation topology; microchip; output frequency; power 575.4 pW; power 58.07 mW; remote sensing application; resistance 50 ohm; size 130 nm; size 340 mum; size 450 mum; telecommunication application; terahertz voltage-controlled oscillators; BiCMOS integrated circuits; Frequency; Germanium silicon alloys; Optical imaging; Power generation; Remote sensing; Silicon germanium; Submillimeter wave technology; Tuning; Voltage-controlled oscillators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronics, Circuits, and Systems, 2009. ICECS 2009. 16th IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Yasmine Hammamet

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5090-9

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-5091-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICECS.2009.5410799

Filename

5410799