The emerging wireless communication and radar systems at millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) frequencies de-mand a power-efficient wideband local oscillator (LO) with low phase noise. As the frequency increases, the quality factors of the on-chip varactor and switched capacitor sharply drop, resulting in a severe tradeoff among phase-noise, frequency tuning range (FTR), and power consumption for fundamental mm-Wave oscillators.
This talk will start with the various mode-switching techniques that increase the oscillator’s FTR without impairing its phase noise performance. With the proposed inductive mode-switching technique, the 42.9-to-50.6 GHz VCO prototype demonstrates a phase noise of −103.6 dBc/Hz @ 1MHz offset at 46GHz with a power consumption of 21mW. This talk will also introduce the harmonic extraction techniques that provide another direction for the mm-Wave frequency generation. By extracting the third-harmonic tone, the fundamental oscillator can operate at a much lower frequency, relieving the phase noise, power, and FTR tradeoffs. With the proposed current-mode implicit frequency tripling technique, the 54.9-to-63.5GHz LO generator demonstrates a phase noise of −100.7 dBc/Hz @ 1MHz offset at 60GHz with a power consumption of 9mW.