An InGaP/GaAs HBT Based Differential Colpitts VCO with Low Phase Noise

An InGaP/GaAs HBT based differential Colpitts voltage control oscillator(VCO) is presented in this paper. In the VCO core, two switching transistors are introduced to steer the core bias current to save power. An LC tank with an inductor quality factor(Q) of 11.4 is used to generate oscillation frequency. It has a superior phase noise characteristics of -130.12 dBc/Hz and -105.3 at 1 MHz and 100 kHz frequency offsets respectively from the carrier frequency(1.566 GHz) when supplied with a control voltage of 0 volt. It dissipates output power of -5.3 dBm. Two pairs of on-chip base collector (BC) diodes are used in the tank circuit to increase the VCO tuning range(168 MHz). This VCO occupies the area of $1.070{\times}0.90mm^2$ including buffer and pads.