60GHz Quadrature Voltage-Controlled Oscillator for Radar Application

Master thesis (2010)

Authors

Contributors

J.R. Long (mentor)
H. Veenstra (mentor)
Programme
Microelectronics (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2010 Shen, J.
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Published Date

31-08-2010

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Programme

Microelectronics

Abstract

A voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) is an integral part of a phase lock loop (PLL) which by itself is the core of the frequency reference in a radar system. The generation of the in-phase and quadratue signals is crucial for many radar applications. A 60GHz quadrature voltage controlled oscillator (QVCO) is presented in this thesis. The design is implemented in 130nm SiGe BiCMOS technology from STMicroelectronics with an fT of 220GHz and fMax of 320GHz. Two Colpitts oscillator cores are series coupled to each other to generate the required in-phase and quadrature signals. The QVCO achieves a simulated tuning range from 53GHz to 59GHz with a tuning voltage from 0.5V to 2.3V. The phase noise is better than -76dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset from the carrier over the whole frequency tuning range. The total power consumption for the QVCO core is 28mW. The chip has been submitted for tape out in June 2010 and will be back for measurement in due time.