A Fully Integrated $W$ -Band Signal Source in 60/100-nm Si/AlGaN/GaN HEMT Technology
Journal article, 2024
This article reports on Si/AlGaN/GaN HEMT MMICs for $W$ -band frequency generation. A $Ka$ -band voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), a $W$ -band frequency tripler, and a $W$ -band frequency quadrupler are designed to reach good phase noise, output power, and harmonic rejection in the $W$ -band. The VCO presents an experimental frequency tuning range of 21.8–25.2 GHz, and it enables direct integration with a commercial phase-locked loop (PLL). The tripler exhibits a peak output power of 3 dBm with a 3-dB bandwidth between 90-and 108-GHz output frequencies. The quadrupler, which is based on the integration of two doublers, one interstage buffer amplifier and a two-stage output buffer amplifier, achieves more than 10-dBm output power and better than 25-dB harmonics suppression over the frequency range of 89–100 GHz. The VCO and the quadrupler are also integrated into a fully integrated $W$ -band signal source with a frequency tuning range from 91.6 to 100.3 GHz and an output power of 12–16 dBm. Typical phase noise of $-$ 126 dBc/Hz is measured at 10-MHz offset from the carrier. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the highest integration level reported for a $W$ -band signal source in GaN HEMT MMIC technology. In addition, state-of-the-art far-carrier phase noise for $W$ -band signal sources based on integrated resonators is presented.
HEMTs
Power generation
Amplifier
frequency multiplier
Phase noise
doubler
voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO)
high power
Logic gates
HEMT
GaN
Voltage-controlled oscillators
<inline-formula xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$W$</tex-math> </inline-formula>-band
quadrupler
Tuning
tripler
Resonant frequency
Author
Yu Yan
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics
Thi Ngoc Do Thanh
Ericsson
Iltcho Angelov
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics
Frida Strömbeck
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics
Dan Kuylenstierna
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics
IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
0018-9480 (ISSN) 15579670 (eISSN)
Vol. 72 10 5624-5631Subject Categories
Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
DOI
10.1109/TMTT.2024.3397035