Ku-band high output power multiphase rotary travelling-wave VCO in SiGe BiCMOS

In this paper, a multiphase 18 GHz voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) based on the rotary traveling-wave principle is presented. Using a 0.25 μm BiCMOS process, the fabricated bipolar VCO achieves a tuning range of 700 MHz and a phase noise of -98 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from the carrier frequency. The oscillator shows high output power of -5.5 dBm and it provides 8 different phases. The VCO core consumes 13.5 mA of current. The performance of our proposed VCO is comparable with other published CMOS VCOs operating at the same frequency, but provides more phases and consumes lower current.