An improved switched injection-locked oscillator for ranging and communication systems

This paper describes an improved integrated switched injection-locked oscillator (SILO) circuit for use in pulsed angular modulated ultra wideband communication and radar systems, implemented in a 0.25 μm SiGe:C BiCMOS technology. The circuit consists of two active baluns for single-ended to differential and differential to single-ended conversion, a Schmitt-trigger with two pulse generators based on current-starved voltage controlled delay lines and inverter chains and a simple Q-degenerated cross-coupled oscillator for signal generation. It has an externally controllable pulse repetition rate and duration. The previous works of the authors [1] was severely improved in the area of required locking power and pulse duration control. Required injection power has been reduced to -65 dBm. During operation it consumes combined 40mA from 3.3V analog and 2.5V digital supply voltage, while generating a 370mV_pp signal. The generated signal has a 10 dB-bandwidth of over 2.3 GHz at 6.8 GHz center frequency. Measurement results are shown.