J. Semicond. > 2015, Volume 36 > Issue 6 > 065010

SEMICONDUCTOR INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology

Jincan Zhang1, Yuming Zhang2, Hongliang Lü2, , Yimen Zhang2, Bo Liu1, Leiming Zhang1 and Fei Xiang1

+ Author Affiliations

 Corresponding author: Hongliang Lü, Email: hllv@mail.xidian.edu.cn

DOI: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010

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Abstract: A fully integrated Ku-band voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is presented in an InGaP/GaAs heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. To achieve the wide tuning range (TR), the VCO employs a Colpitts configuration, and the VCO simultaneously achieves high output power. The implemented VCO demonstrates an oscillation frequency range from 12.82 to 14.97 GHz, a frequency TR of 15.47%, an output power from 0.31 to 6.46 dBm, and a phase noise of-94.9 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from 13.9 GHz center frequency. The VCO consumes 52.75 mW from 5 V supply and occupies an area of 0.81 × 0.78 mm2. Finally, the figures-of-merit for VCOs is discussed.

Key words: voltage controlled oscillatorInGaP/GaAs HBTKu bandwide tuning rangehigh output power

Ku-band technology is increasingly finding roles in developing high resolution and compact radar systems. This is mainly because many aspects in a radar sensor, for instance, spatial resolution, antenna size, etc., are directly related to the wavelength of the adopted carrier signal. The resolution of a radar system can also be improved greatly by increasing the TR and output power of the local oscillator used in the transceiver[1]. Thus the necessity for a wide-tuning-range VCO with high-output-power is evident in the construction of high-resolution radar sensor systems at Ku band.

InGaP/GaAs HBTs have somewhat lower fT than GaAs pseudo high-electron-mobility transistors (PHEMTs) or InP based transistors. However, these HBTs are very attractive to use for millimeter wave applications due to their low 1/f noise, reliable fabrication process, and lower manufacturing cost[2]. Thus, InGaP/GaAs HBTs are adopted to implement the VCO in this paper.

The VCO frequency TR is determined by the variable device used in the resonating tank, for instance, varactor diodes commonly control the TR in a typical LC VCO. Therefore, in an LC VCO varactor size should be carefully chosen to maximize the TR. At millimeter-wave frequencies, two topologies (cross-coupled VCO[3, 4] and Colpitts VCO[5, 6, 7, 8]})$ are widely used. From Reference [9], it can be concluded that both topologies are capable of very good phase noise. However, it is well known that the maximum oscillation frequency of a Colpitts VCO is higher than that of a cross-coupled VCO[7]. One way to further extend the output frequency range is to use push-push oscillators. However, as the frequency increases, the output power of a push-push oscillator is usually low, as reported in Reference [10]. The output power can be improved through a tuning network at the output, but only for a narrow bandwidth[11]. In this paper, a Ku-band wide-TR Colpitts VCO with high output power is presented in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology.

The technology used in this work is the InGaP/GaAs HBT process from WIN Semiconductors Corp. It features a minimum drawn emitter width of 1 μm and fT/fmax of 65/80 GHz. The process offers four types of npn transistors, Q1H051B1, Q1H101B1, Q1H151B1 and Q1H201B1, with different emitter length (5, 10, 15 and 20 μm, respectively) and with breakdown voltages of 9 V. Two metal layers, two types of capacitors, resistors, varactor diodes, as well as inductances are available. Two thicknesses of GaAs substrates (75 and 100 μm) can be chosen. In this work, the low-cost substrate with 100 μm thickness was used.

The Colpitts VCO is the commonly used topology for integrated bipolar VCOs, especially at millimeter-wave frequencies. Although the cross-coupled VCO requires smaller transconductance and, therefore, lower bias current and DC power to oscillate than a Colpitts VCO, it suffers from low output power, and narrow tuning range[8]. The Colpitts VCO has some advantages over the cross-coupled VCO[8]:

(1) Unlike in a cross-coupled topology, the varactor capacitance is placed in series with the base-emitter capacitance, thus reducing the impact of the base-emitter capacitance on the oscillation frequency.

(2) The varactor diode connected between the base node and the AC ground does not appear in parallel with any transistor capacitance which would reduce its impact on the TR.

Thus, a wide-TR Colpitts VCO was designed and implemented in this work. The schematic of the VCO is presented in Figure 1, where the inductor (L3) and the capacitors (C1, C2, Cc, Co, Cvar and the base-emitter junction capacitor of the HBT CBE) form the resonating tank. An InGaP/GaAs HBT is employed as the active device due to its low 1/f noise and good power performance, also it is used in common-collector configuration to make the oscillation achieve high output power. The parameters of the VCO are summarized in Table 1. The transistor bias point was set by considering the gain performance and the current consumption. In essence, the oscillation frequency is given by Equation (1).

fosc=12πL3[(C1+CBE)C2Cc(CoCvar)],(1)
where Cvar is the capacitance of the varactor diodes. Since CBE is in parallel with C1, and the value of C1 is set to be far more than that of CBE, a change in the device size will not cause any significant frequency shift or TR degradation, so the device size can be determined independently of the varactor size. In this case one can increase the device size to achieve high output power by increasing the bias current of the VCO. In addition, metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor C1 is included and adjusted between the base and the emitter to reduce phase distortion and to increase the TR, because in large-signal mode, CBE is one of the factors to cause phase distortion[7].

Figure  1.  Schematic of Colpitts VCO designed in this paper.
Table  1.  VCO parameters.
DownLoad: CSV  | Show Table

Although an oscillator is a strongly nonlinear circuit operated under large-signal conditions, an efficient method to quickly obtain the TR of the VCO is to start off with a small signal (S-parameter) analysis. Compared with transient or harmonic balance simulations, small-signal simulations are fast, do not suffer from nonconvergence problems, and do not require initial conditions. This is particularly important when simulating bipolar VCOs at millimeter-wave frequencies, and the transistor model must capture self-heating and avalanche multiplication, which are the positive feedback to cause significant nonconvergence problems at large voltage swings. During the transient simulations, the impedance of the S-parameter signal source is set to be a small value (i.e., 10-15 Ω), to clearly reflect the expected effective resistance of the tank inductance at the oscillation frequency, and thus to allow the onset of oscillations to occur.

As illustrated in Figure 2, by plotting the real and imaginary parts of the impedance looking into the base of the HBT, Rin and Xin, respectively, one can quickly assess if the circuit produces an adequate negative resistance at the desired oscillation frequency fosc (approximately the frequency at which Xin =0 and Rin < 0[8]})$, in turn to estimate the TR of the VCO. From Figure 2, it can be concluded that fosc is about 13 GHz and 14.8 GHz when Vtune is equal to 0 and 5 V, respectively. Figure 3 shows the simulated oscillation frequency of the VCO by the means of harmonic balance simulation, and it can be seen that the oscillation frequency range is from 12.68 to 14.51 GHz, which is in accordance with that concluded with S-parameter analysis.

Figure  2.  Simulated input impedance as the tuning voltage Vtune is changed from 0 to 5 V.
Figure  3.  Simulated oscillation frequencies of the VCO.

The VCO was simulated using ADS2009U1 and fabricated in WIN 1 μm InGaP/GaAs HBT technology. The layout is also a key part of the Ku-band VCO, in which the most critical part is the resonating tank which has to be carefully designed to prevent the parasitic capacitive and resistive effects. The metal connection in the critical layout was designed using the thicker metal layer MET2 and a sufficient number of vias to reduce the parasitic capacitor and resistance.

The chip microphotograph of the VCO is illustrated in Figure 4. The circuit occupies an area of 0.81 × 0.78 mm2, including the bonding pads. The circuit was measured on a wafer. The voltage and current source HP4142B was used to supply the dc voltages ("VDD" and "Vtune"), meanwhile the output ("Out") was connected through a ground-signal-ground (GSG) probe to the spectrum analyzer Agilent N9030A and a 50 Ω load. The VCO was biased at VDD = 5 V (IDD = 10.55 mA), consuming 52.75 mW of DC power.

Figure  4.  Microphotograph of the VCO.

Figures 5(a) and 5(b) show the VCO output spectrum with tuning voltage Vtune of 0 and 5 V, respectively. It is very clear from Figure 5 that the power of the 2nd harmonic signals is about 30 dBm much less than that of the fundamental signal, without any load matching network adjusting. This result is very good for the oscillator without any output low pass filter.

Figure  5.  Output spectrum of the VCO (a) Vtune = 0 V and (b) Vtune = 5 V.

Figure 6 shows the measured frequency and output power of the VCO. The oscillation frequency of the VCO is from 12.82 to 14.97 GHz, which can be continuously tuned by changing the tuning voltage from 0 to 5 V. It can be observed that the measured oscillation frequency (12.82-14.97 GHz) of the VCO is slightly shifted up as compared to the simulated oscillation frequency (12.68-14.51 GHz). The difference between the simulated and measured results can be attributed to the reason that all the passive elements and wirings of the circuit were modeled by quasi 3-D electromagnetic simulations of a momentum electromagnetic (EM) simulator in Agilent's advanced design system (ADS). It is difficult to set the substrate parameters to be the same as the fabricated due to the deviation of the actual process from the list in the library. From Figure~6, it can be seen that the output power is around 4 dBm over the oscillation frequency range, with a maximum 6.46 dBm at 14.27 GHz, higher than that in previously published work[10] in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology. This output power level can easily drive a mixer in receivers.

Figure  6.  Measured oscillation frequency and output power of the VCO.

The phase noise of the VCO is difficult to measure, due to the spectrum jittering caused by the noise from the supply and tuning voltages. In this work, the phase noise is roughly measured using the Phase Noise Utility of the spectrum analyzer (Agilent N9030A). Figure 7 shows the measurement results, in which the phase noise of the VCO is 94.9 dBc/Hz at 1~MHz offset from the carrier frequency 13.9 GHz, which is lower than that in other wide-TR VCOs[1, 12].

Figure  7.  Measured phase noise of the VCO.

The important parameters of a VCO are the center oscillation frequency fosc, the phase noise PN measured at an offset of Δf from fosc, the output power Pout, the power dissipation PVCO, the tuning range TR achieved by varying the tuning voltage Vtune, and the variation of tuning voltage ΔVtune. To fairly compare the VCOs reported in the available literature, several figures-of-merit (FOMs) have been presented.

FOM depicted in Equation (2) is the most widely used, but it excludes the TR which is one of the most important properties of a VCO. Even though some systems do not require a wide range or need only operate at a single frequency, a wide TR is nevertheless required because of variations caused by the parasitics at millimeter-wave frequencies. There is a direct tradeoff between the TR and other properties. Therefore, the TR should be included, as described in FOMT depicted in Equation (3)[13].

FOM=PN20lgfoscΔf+10lgPVCO1mW,

(2)

FOMT=PN20lg(foscΔfTR10%)+10lgPVCO1mW.

(3)

However, FOMT does not take Pout into account, and as a result, output power will not affect the FOMT even if a VCO generates a very little output power. It may be supposed that the output power is already considered in the phase noise, but the phase noise is determined by the tank swing, which should be distinguished from the output power. As the tank swing is large, the output power can be low if the output buffer is improperly designed. In addition, if the output power is low, then more buffers and more power dissipation are required to satisfy the system specifications because mixers, for example, require a large amount of LO power. Therefore, the output power should be included, as described in FOMTP depicted in Equation (4)[14].

FOMTP=PN20lg(foscΔfTR10%)+10lgPVCO1mWPout.

(4)

Lastly, the ΔVtune is another important parameter of a VCO, because there is a direct tradeoff between the ΔVtune and the TR. The bigger the ΔVtune is, the wider the TR achieved. The importance of ΔVtune is described in FOMTV depicted in Equation (5)[13]. However, FOMTP and FOMTV do not simultaneously account for ΔVtune and Pout to be beneficial to VCO comparison. A new ΔVtune-added and Pout-added FOM factor, called FOMTVP, is hence proposed as Equation (6).

FOMTV=PN20lg(foscΔfTR10%1ΔVtune)+10lgPVCO1mW,

(5)

FOMTVP=PN20lg(foscΔfTR10%1ΔVtune)+10lgPVCO1mWPout.

(6)

A comparison of the performance of the designed Colpitts VCO in this paper with those of the previously reported VCOs is presented in Table 2. It can be seen that the presented VCO has a lower FOMTVP, which suggests that the VCO achieves wide tuning range and high output power as well as other excellent properties. Note that the higher TR reported in Reference [5] was achieved. However, its variation of tuning voltage 13~V is much bigger than supply voltage 5 V, which is not commonly used, because this could shorten the practical time of the devices.

Table  2.  Comparison of high-speed VCOs.
DownLoad: CSV  | Show Table

In this paper, a Ku-band VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology has been presented. To achieve wide TR and high output power, the VCO was implemented using the structure of Colpitts VCO without buffer stage. By introducing a small signal (S-parameter) analysis method the design process of the VCO is accelerated. Measured results show that the VCO has achieved an oscillation frequency range from 12.82 GHz to 14.97 GHz (15.47%) with a maximum output power of 6.46~dBm at 14.27 GHz. The phase noise is 94.9 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset from the center oscillation frequency 13.9~GHz. The FOMTVP achieves 154.85 dB, which simultaneously consider the TR, the variation of tuning voltage and the output power of the VCO.



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Fig. 1.  Schematic of Colpitts VCO designed in this paper.

Fig. 2.  Simulated input impedance as the tuning voltage Vtune is changed from 0 to 5 V.

Fig. 3.  Simulated oscillation frequencies of the VCO.

Fig. 4.  Microphotograph of the VCO.

Fig. 5.  Output spectrum of the VCO (a) Vtune = 0 V and (b) Vtune = 5 V.

Fig. 6.  Measured oscillation frequency and output power of the VCO.

Fig. 7.  Measured phase noise of the VCO.

DownLoad: CSV

Table 1.   VCO parameters.

DownLoad: CSV

Table 2.   Comparison of high-speed VCOs.

DownLoad: CSV
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    Jincan Zhang, Yuming Zhang, Hongliang Lü, Yimen Zhang, Bo Liu, Leiming Zhang, Fei Xiang. A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology[J]. Journal of Semiconductors, 2015, 36(6): 065010. doi: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010
    J C Zhang, Y M Zhang, H Lü, Y M Zhang, B Liu, L M Zhang, F Xiang. A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology[J]. J. Semicond., 2015, 36(6): 065010. doi: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010.
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    Received: 17 December 2014 Revised: Online: Published: 01 June 2015

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      Jincan Zhang, Yuming Zhang, Hongliang Lü, Yimen Zhang, Bo Liu, Leiming Zhang, Fei Xiang. A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology[J]. Journal of Semiconductors, 2015, 36(6): 065010. doi: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010 ****J C Zhang, Y M Zhang, H Lü, Y M Zhang, B Liu, L M Zhang, F Xiang. A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology[J]. J. Semicond., 2015, 36(6): 065010. doi: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010.
      Citation:
      Jincan Zhang, Yuming Zhang, Hongliang Lü, Yimen Zhang, Bo Liu, Leiming Zhang, Fei Xiang. A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology[J]. Journal of Semiconductors, 2015, 36(6): 065010. doi: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010 ****
      J C Zhang, Y M Zhang, H Lü, Y M Zhang, B Liu, L M Zhang, F Xiang. A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology[J]. J. Semicond., 2015, 36(6): 065010. doi: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010.

      A Ku-band wide-tuning-range high-output-power VCO in InGaP/GaAs HBT technology

      DOI: 10.1088/1674-4926/36/6/065010
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      Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2010CBxxxx05), the Advance Research Project of China (No. 51308xxxx06), the Advance Research Foundation of China (No. 9140A08xxxx11DZ111), and Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Henan University of Science and Technology (No. 400613480011), and the Foundation of He'nan Educational Commettee (No. 15A510001).

      More Information
      • Corresponding author: Email: hllv@mail.xidian.edu.cn
      • Received Date: 2014-12-17
      • Accepted Date: 2015-01-26
      • Published Date: 2015-01-25

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