New MMIC-based Millimeter-wave Power Source Chau-Ching Chiong, Ping-Chen Huang, Yuh-Jing Huang, Ming-Tang Chen (ASIAA), Shou-Hsien Weng, Ho-Yeh Chang (NCUEE), Che-Chiang Kuo, Huei Wang (NTUE

E)

Wide bandwidth MMIC VCO at Ka-band LO-PLL system

Ref. TechnologyCenter Freq. (GHz)

Tuning range (GHz)

Pout

(dBm)

Dissipation (mW)

Phase noise @ 1 MHz(dBc/Hz)

FOM

VCO A InGaP/GaAs HBT 30.6 5.5 -5 90 -101 -171

VCO B InGaP/GaAs HBT 36.4 3.8 -10 64 -99 -172

[1] SiGe HBT 41.0 11 3.5 280 -109 -177

[2] InP DHBT 43.5 13 -8.5 197 -80 -150

mWmm

o

PfLf

fdBFOM

)(

1)(log10)( 2

Reference[1] H. Li and H. M. Rein, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 184-191, Feb. 2

003.

Based on the experience from the first HBT run in the year 2006, where Ku- and K-band VCOs were fabricated, differential Ka-band VCOs are designed in the year 2007.

A new millimeter-wave LO-PLL system with MMIC VCO as central core is proposed. With different combination of frequency multiplication factor, N, and frequency division factor, M, the system can be used as Ka- or W-band power source (Fig. 7). The final goal of our new configuration is to have a power source in miniature SOC (system on chip) or SIP (system in package) format.

Fig. 1. Schematic of the differential, double-tuned VCO.

Fig. 2. Chip photo of VCO A, with chip size of 2 x 1mm2.

Fig. 3. Measured and simulated output oscillating frequency and power at GSG pad of VCO A versus the tuning voltage, Vtu.

Fig. 4. Measured output spectrum of VCO A with Vtu = 0 V. Measured phase noise at 1-MHz offset is -101.7 dBc/Hz.

[2] L. Zhang, R. Pullela, C. Winczewski, J. Chow, D. Mensa, S. Jaganathan, and R. Yu, IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium, pp. 85-88, 2002.

The measured output frequency and output power of the VCO A versus the tuning voltage (Vtu) are shown in Fig. 3 and 4.

Fig. 5 and 6 show comparison of the fabricated VCOs with reported wideband VCOs (tuning range > 10%). Our VCOs are compatible with other in term of oscillation bandwidth and phase noise. A detail comparison with other two Ka-band wideband VCOs can be found in Table I. Our dc power consumption of VCO is only 1/2 to 1/3 of those of the other ones.

Fig. 6. Phase noise at 1 MHz offset from the carrier of the reported wideband VCOs.

Fig. 5. Oscillation bandwidth of the reported wideband VCOs.

In order to achieve this, mixer, power amplifier and frequency divider are already designed in house and fabricated using mHEMT and HBT technologies. Fig. 8 shows the chip photos of them. Mixer for Ka-band system was fabricated by mHEMT process. Conversion gain of -10 to -20 dB was measured with LO of 23 to 29 GHz and RF of 27 to 33 GHz (Fig. 9). Frequency divider was fabricated using HBT. It operates up to 15 GHz with -20 dBm output power, or operates at lower frequency with higher output power (Fig. 11). The HBT Darlington power amplifier has very wide 3 dB bandwidth from 2 to 30 GHz (Fig. 10). These parts will be packaged and assembled this year. Frequency multiplier will be designed this year.

Fig. 7. Block diagram of proposed MMIC-based millimeter-wave power source.

D e

O ut +

V eeV tu

V bb

D bIee

O ut -

Q 1

Q 2

D e

D b

L c

L c

C

C

L e2 L e1

L e2 L e1

R 1 R 2

L bb

L bb

R

R

Table I. Comparisons of Previously Reported Ka-Band VCOs and This Work.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Center Frequency (GHz)

Osc

illat

ion

Ban

dwid

th (

%)

VCO 2007

VCO 2006-160

-140

-120

-100

-80

-60

-40

1 10 100

Center Frequency (GHz)

Pha

se n

oise

(dB

c/H

z)

VCO 2007VCO 2006

Output P

ower

(dBm

)

20

22

24

26

28

30

32

34

36

-2 -1 0 1 2 3 4Vtu (V)

Osc

illa

tion

Fre

q.

(GH

z)

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Freq - MeasuredFreq - SimulationPower - measuredPower - Simulation

-30

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Freq. (GHz)

Pou

t (d

Bm

)

Vbias = 2 V, Pdc = 320 mW

Vbias = 1.8 V, Pdc = 270 mW

Vbias = 1.6 V, Pdc= 120 mW

-30

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Freq. .(GHz)

Pin

(dB

m)

Vbias = 2 V, I = 81 mAVbias = 1.8 V, I = 67 mAVbias = 1.6 V, I = 29 mA

Fig. 8. Chip photos of mixer (left, 1.5 x 1 mm2), frequency divider (middle, 1.5 x 1 mm2), and power amplifier (right, 1 x 1 mm2).

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34-50

-45

-40

-35

-30

-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

0

CL

and

Iso. (

dB)

RF Frequency (GHz)

Conversion Loss (Chip1) Conversion Loss (Chip2) Lo-to-IF Isolation (Chip1) Lo-to-IF Isolation (Chip2)

Fig. 9. Conversion gain of mHEMT mixer.

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70-10-8-6-4-202468

10121416

Smal

l Sig

nal G

ain

(dB

)

Frequency (GHz)

Simulation Measurement

Fig. 10. Small signal gain of Darlington PA.

Fig. 11. Measured results of frequency divider. Input frequency and sensitivity (left), and output power at various bias condition (right).

OverviewVoltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and PLL components are designed and fabricated using 2um InGaP/GaAs HBT and 0.15 um mHEMT. New MMIC-based millimeter-wave power sources working at Ka- and W-band are under development. We expect MMIC system with its cheap, light-weightiness, easily-controlled and low power-consumption will be ideal choice for future large antenna arrays applications, e. g. SMA, SKA, and ALMA.

VCO

Control signal

Nfosc

fcontrol

Phase Detector

Reference signal (~MHz)

Frequency Divider

(fosc-fcontrol)÷M

fosc-fcontrol

Tuning voltage

Mixer

÷ M

Loop Filter (~1 MHz)

Power amplifier N

fosc

Frequency Multiplier

Coupler