High Power Ultra Compact VCO with Active Reactance Concepts at 24 GHz

Extremely compact layout and circuit design techniques have been applied to commercially available Si/SiGe hetero bipolar transistor (HBT) MMIC technology. An ultra compact voltage controlled oscillator with a high output power has been realized, addressing the ISM band at 24 GHz. Active reactance concepts have made it possible to realize the layout of this MMIC on an ultra compact area of 300×300 ¿m. The voltage control has been provided by a voltage tunable active inductance. To reduce oscillator pushing, a cascode buffer has been added. An output power of +1 dBm at 24 GHz has been achieved.

[1]  Keith A. Jenkins,et al.  An 11-GHz 3-V SiGe voltage-controlled oscillator with integrated resonator , 1996, Proceedings of the 1996 BIPOLAR/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting.

[2]  Ulrich L. Rohde,et al.  Microwave Circuit Design Using Linear and Nonlinear Techniques: Vendelin/Microwave Circuit Design Using Linear and Nonlinear Techniques , 1990 .

[3]  H. Schumacher,et al.  Parameter extraction of SiGe HBTs for a scalable MEXTRAM model and performance verification by a SiGe HBT MMIC active receive mixer design for 11 GHz , 2000, 2000 Topical Meetings on Silicon Monolithic Integrated Circuits in RF Systems. Digest of Papers (Cat. No.00EX397).

[4]  D.B.M. Klaassen,et al.  Efficient parameter extraction for the MEXTRAM model , 1995, Proceedings of Bipolar/Bicmos Circuits and Technology Meeting.

[5]  H. Schumacher,et al.  16 GHz Integrated Oscillator Design with Active Elements in a Production Ready SiGe HBT MMIC Technology , 2000, 2000 30th European Microwave Conference.