A 60 GHz wide tuning range SiGe bipolar VCO for HDMI and wireless docking applications

A wide tuning range voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with novel architecture is proposed in this work. The entire circuit consists of a VCO core, a summing circuit, a single-ended to differential (STD) converter and a buffer amplifier. The VCO core oscillates at half the desired frequency and the second harmonic of the VCO core is extracted by the summing circuit, which is then converted to a differential pair by the STD. The entire VCO circuit operates from 58.85 to 70.85 GHz with 20% frequency tuning range. The measured VCO gain is less than 1.6 GHz/V. The measured phase noise at 3 MHz offset is less than -78 dBc/Hz across the entire tuning range. The differential phase error of the output signals is measured by down converting the VCO output signals to low gigahertz frequency using an on-chip mixer. The measured differential phase error is less than 8°. The VCO circuit, which is constructed using 0.35 µm SiGe technology, occupies 770 × 550 µm2 die area and consumes 62 mA under 3.5 V supply.