2000 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
Volume 48 Number 2, February 2000

Table of Contents for this issue

Complete paper in PDF format

A Single-Chip SI-Bipolar 1.6-GHz VCO with Integrated-Bias Network

M. Zannoth, J. Fenk, A. Springer and R. Weigel

Page 203.

Abstract:

A single-chip 2.7-V voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with an integrated-bias network has been implemented in an Si-bipolar process with an fT of 25 GHz. With an on-chip resonator consisting of vertically coupled inductors and varactor diodes, an oscillation frequency of 1.56 GHz was measured. A careful design of the oscillator and bias network was necessary to achieve a phase noise performance of -139 dBc/Hz at 4.7 MHz off carrier. The tuning sensitivity was 100 MHz/V, which is sufficient to compensate for production tolerances. The VCO can be used as a building block for single-chip transceivers in digital European cordless telephone or global system for mobile communication systems.

References

  1. M. Zannoth, B. Kolb, J. Fenk and R. Weigel, "A fully integrated VCO at 2 GHz", IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol. 33, pp.  1987- 1991, Dec.  1998.
  2. G. Sauvage, "Phase noise in oscillators: A mathematical analysis of Leeson's model", IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. IM-26, pp.  408-410,  Dec.  1977.
  3. J. Craninckx and M. S. J. Steyaert, "A 1.8-GHz low-phase-noise CMOS VCO using optimized hollow spiral inductors", IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol. 32, pp.  736-744, May  1997.
  4. J. Craninckx and M. S. J. Steyaert, "A fully integrated CMOS DCS-1800 frequency synthesizer", IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol. 33, pp.  2054-2065,  Dec.  1998.
  5. J. R. Long and M. A. Copeland, "The modeling, characterization and design of monolithic inductors for silicon RF IC's", IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, vol. 32, pp.  357-369, Mar.  1997.
  6. P. R. Gray and R. G. Meyer, Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits, 3rd ed.   New York: Wiley , 1993, pp.  338 -345. 
  7. F. X. Kärtner, "Untersuchung des Rauschverhaltens von Oszillatoren", Ph.D. dissertation, Tech. Univ. Munich, Munich, Germany, 1988 .