A Ku-band Low Phase Noise Wide Tuning Range Voltage Controlled Oscillator Using 2-μm GaAs HBT Process

In this paper, a Ku-band low phase noise wide tuning range voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) using a 2-mu m GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology is presented. A common-emitter (CE) topology with an inductor-capacitor (LC) feedback network is utilized in the circuit design, and the VCO demonstrates a low phase noise of -112.5 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset carrier frequency. The tuning frequency is from 14.6 to 16.6 GHz with a maximum output power of 6.9 dBm. The overall dc power consumption of the VCO is only 25 mW with a dc supply voltage of 2 V. The chip size of the VCO is 1 X 1 mm(2). To the authors' best knowledge, this work demonstrates the lowest figure-of-merit (FOM) among all the reported Ku-band GaAs-based VCOs.