Abstract
Design and fabrication issues for an L-band GaAs Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit(MMIC) Voltage Controlled Oscillator(VCO) as a component of Personal Communications Systems(PCS) Radio Frequency(RF) transceiver are discussed. An ion-implanted GaAs MESFET tailored toward low current and low noise with 0.5mm gate length and 300mm gate width has been used as an active device, while an FET with the drain shorted to the source has been used as the voltage variable capacitor. The principal design was based on a self-biased FET with capacitive feedback. A tuning range of 140MHz and 58MHz has been obtained by 3V change for a 600mm and a 300mm devices, respectively. The oscillator output power was 6.5dBm wth 14mA DC current supply at 3.6V. The phase noise without any buffer or PLL was 93dB/1Hz at 100KHz offset. Harmonic balance analysis was used for the non-linear simulation after a linear simulation. All layout induced parasitics were incorporated into the simulation with EEFET2 non-linear FET model. The fabricated circuits were measured using a coplanar-type probe for bare chips and test jigs with ceramic packages.