A Ku-Band Low-Phase-Noise Wide-Tuning-Range VCO in SiGe BiCMOS Technology

—In this paper, design and fabrication of a Ku-band voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) using commercially available 0.18 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology is presented. To achieve the low phase noise, the VCO employs a gm-boosted configuration which is a combination of cross coupled VCO and balanced Colpitts VCO, and the VCO simultaneously achieves wide tuning range. The tested results show that the VCO exhibits a phase noise of –116.2 dBc/Hz at a 1 MHz offset and presents a tuning range from 12.82 GHz to 14.28 GHz. The overall dc current consumption of the VCO is 2.1 mA with a supply voltage 1.8 V. The chip area of the VCO is 0.92×0.91 mm.