A 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS HBT VCO using diode degeneration.

This letter proposes a BiCMOS voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), which was implemented in the standard TSMC 0.18 μm SiGe 3P6M BiCMOS process. The VCO consists of an nMOSFET cross-coupled oscillator stacked in series with source degenerated HBT diodes. SiGe HBT has an inherently low flicker noise compared to CMOS devices. At the supply voltage of 1.5 V, the output phase noise of the VCO is −122.01 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency from the carrier frequency of 5.6 GHz, and the figure of merit is −190.43 dBc/Hz. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:605-608, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26619 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]