A 9-Bit 9.6GHz 1.9W Direct Digital Synthesizer RFIC Implemented In 0.18μm SiGe BiCMOS Technology

Abstract

This paper presents a low power SiGe DDS MMIC with 9-bit phase and 8-bit amplitude resolution. Using more than 9600 transistors, the active area of the DDS is 2.3 × 0.7 mm2. The maximum clock frequency was measured at 9.6 GHz with 4.8 GHz Nyquist output. The DDS MMIC consumes 1.9 W power consumption under 3.3 V/4.0 V dual power supplies. The DDS achieves the best reported power efficiency figure of merit of 5.1 GHz/W. The measured SFDR is 30 dBc with 2.4 GHz outputs at the maximum clock frequency.