Full Octave Continuously Tunable SiGe Bipolar LC-VCO in Ku-Band

In this paper a signal generation concept is presented with frequency tuning ranges of more than one octave in the K
u
-Band. On the MMIC a fundamental cross-coupled ultra-wideband K
u
-Band LC-VCO is integrated along with a simple buffer and a frequency divider for PLL stabilization. The chip is fabricated in Infineon’s BiCMOS production technology B11HFC which offers HBTs with an f
T
of 250 GHz and f
max
of 370 GHz. The chip has a power consumption of only 106 mW and uses an area of 0.52 mm
²
. The VCO reaches an absolute frequency tuning range (FTR) of 12.1 GHz (relative FTR=75.1%) at a center frequency of 16.1 GHz. The phase noise at 1 MHz offset is as low as -104 dBc/Hz. The output level is around 0 dBm.