A 67 GHz High Output Power QVCO with 9.9 % Efficiency and Improved Phase Noise in a 130 nm SiGe:C Technology

This work presents a Colpitts quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator with a center frequency of 67 GHz and a bandwidth of 3.9 GHz. The realized circuit provides up to 13.1 dBm output power per channel and has a power consumption of 410 mW, resulting in a dc-to-RF efficiency of 9.9 %. The phase noise of the oscillator at 1 MHz offset is as low as -105.2 dBc/Hz. The measured phase error between the in-phase and the quadrature-phase output is = 11.8°. This work demonstrates a robust coupling mechanism for large bandwidth QVCOs with unambiguous phase positions.