An 8-16GHz Wideband VCO in 130nm SiGe BiCMOS

Abstract

This paper presents an 8-16GHz low-noise voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) for microwave broadband frequency sources in 130nm SiGe BiCMOS. Four narrowband Colpitts oscillators and a multiplexer (MUX) are used to implement a VCO array with wide band feature. Each Colpitts VCO core is equipped 2bit capacitors switches to extend its tuning range. A variable bias is used to reduce phase noise after state of switches change. The simulation results show that the actual tuning range covers 11.3-22.3GHz, and the phase noise is less than -87dBc/Hz at 100kHz offset and less than -107.2dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset.