Oscillator Phase-Noise Reduction Using Low-Noise High-Q Active

Resonators
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b5lr0Cl - This paper describes a method for the design of a
low phase-noise planar oscillator based on a compact low-noise
active elliptic flter for its frequency stabilization. The phase
noise of the oscillator is signifcantly reduced by taking
advantage of the high frequency-selectivity and low-noise
characteristics of the active flter. The flter occupies a relatively
small area due to its two-pole dual-mode structure, making it
suitable for the fabrication of very compact low phase-noise
oscillators. As a proof of concept, a X-band oscillator using a
packaged SiGe HBT transistor is designed and tested. The
oscillator, operating at b.1 GHz, achieves a measured phase-noise
of -1 dBclHz at 1 MHz frequency ofset with 1 dBm output
power. To the best of our knowledge, the oscillator demonstrated
in this paper presents the lowest phase-noise among published
planar oscillators, to date.
INd I?rm5 - Active resonator, dual-mode flter, oscillator,
phase noise, quality factor.
I. 1KCO\C1!C
Oscillator's phase-noise plays an important role in the
performance of communications systems. Low phase-noise
levels can be achieved by utilizing high-quality resonators for
fequency stabilization. Dielectric and cavity resonators ofer
the highest unloaded-quality-factors among available
microwave resonators, but are not amenable to low-cost
integrated-circuit fabrication. Transmission-line-based
resonators such as hair-pin [1] and ring [2] resonators are
widely used to design planar oscillators. Unfortunately, these
resonators do not provide high unloaded-quality-factors and
hence don't allow for the low phase-noise operation of the
oscillators.
In this paper, a very low phase-noise planar oscillator at X
band is demonstrated by utilizing a two-pole dual-mode active
elliptic flter in its feedback loop for fequency stabilization.
The flter provides a very high fequency-selectivity due to the
high unloaded-quality-factors of its constituent resonators, and
the presence of a close-to-passband transmission-zero in its
transfer fnction. Furtermore, the active resonators in the
flter are designed so as to minimize their noise impact on the
phase-noise of the oscillator. As a result, the oscillator
demonstrates a measured phase-noise of -150 dBc/Hz at 1
MHz fequency ofset. To te best of our knowledge, the
oscillator presented in this paper achieves the lowest phase
noise perforance among published X-band planar oscillators
to date. Moreover, the small size of the flter makes it very
J-1-4Z44-oZ-bl1UlZb.UUGZU1U lLLL Zb
usefl for te design of low phase-noise oscillators with
compact structures.
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An oscillator can be designed by providing feedback to a
stable amplifer. According to the Leeson's formula [3],
oscillator's phase-noise is proportional to the inverse-square
of the feedback network's group-delay defned as
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(1)
where o()is the phase response of the feedback network as a
fnction of the fequency ). Usually, a single passive
resonator is used as the fequency-selective element in the
feedback network. Unfortunately, passive planar resonators do
not provide high group-delay values due to thei low
unloaded-quality factors and, thus, do not allow for low phase
noise deign of planar oscillators. One approach to increase the
fequency-selectivity of the feedback network is to design a
multiple-order elliptic-response bandpass flter, as suggested
in our previous work [4]. Compared to a single resonator, an
elliptic flter provides high group-delay values, owing to its
mUltiple resonators, and the presence of close-to-passband
transmission zero(s) in its transfer fnction. This approach has
been successflly implemented in the design of an X-bad low
phase-noise planar oscillator by using a passive four-pole
elliptic flter [4]. This paper demonstrates that substantially
lower phase-noise levels can be achieved when resonators
with high-unloaded-quality factors are employed in the
elliptic-flter design.
High unloaded-quality-factors can be obtained by designing
active resonators that compensate for te energy losses in the
passive resonators [5]. A few papers have successflly
employed single active resonators to design low phase-noise
oscillators [6]-[8]. In this paper, we describe the design of an
oscillator which utilizes active resonators in the form of an
active elliptic flter to obtain very high group-delay values.
Furtherore, the active resonators are designed to reduce their
excess-noise contribution to the phase-noise of the oscillator.
This allows the oscillator to demonstrate signifcantly
improved phase-noise performance compared to the
previously published results for planar oscillators.
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Fig. . (a): A dual-mode active elliptic flter designed for low
phase-noise oscillator applications. (b): Compact version of the flter
using a meandered-loop resonator.
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A compact pseudo-elliptic bandpass flter can be
implemented by designing a two-pole dual-mode flter as
shown in Fig. 1 (a). The dual-mode flter design principles
have been addressed in the literature [9], [10]. The structure in
Fig. 1 (a) posses a pair of degenerate resonant modes, along its
horizontal and vertical axis. The resonant modes are mutually
coupled by the microstrip perturbations at the two inner
comers in order to form a bandpass flter response. A single
transmission-zero is realized by source-load cross-coupling
provided through the asymmetric design of the feeding lines.
The size of the flter can be further decreased by using a
meandered-loop resonator as shown in Fig. I(b). This
structure occupies a relatively small area of about 1/8 ^ A8,
making it suitable for applications with size constraints.
To obtain high unloaded-quality factors and compensate for
their losses, the resonators are coupled to negative-resistance
networks. The negative-resistance circuits are implemented by
using series feedback at the source terminals of low-noise
pHEMT transistors in a common-gate confguration. It is very
important to minimize the effect of the added-noise introduced
by the negative-resistance circuits because the active
resonators are intended for low phase-noise oscillator
applications. This can be accomplished through designing for
the minimum noise-measure of the negative resistance circuits
by providing the optimum reactive terminations to the source
and gate terminals of the transistors, as described in [11].
Matching-networks are then used to transform the drain
impedances to the proper negative-resistance values required
to fully compensate for the resonator losses.
The design parameters of the flter, such as the bandwidth,
retur-loss and the location of the transmission-zero, are
determined according to the procedure introduced in [4] for
low phase-noise oscillator applications. The active flter is
designed on a Roger's RO4003C

substrate and simulated
using Agilent's Momentum

EM solver. Two Atf-33I43
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Fig. 2. Simulated (top) insertion loss and (bottom) group-delay of
the active flter. The simulation results of a similar passive flter are
also included for comparison. The flter center fequency is 8 GHz
with 120 MHz bandwidth, \0 dB retur loss and normalized
transmission-zero-Iocation of 1.2. The high group-delay values of
the active elliptic flter make it very suitable for low phase-noise
oscillator designs
pHEMT transistors with the gains of7 dB and noise-fgures of
1.2 dB are utilized in the design of the negative-resistance
circuits. The simulated fequency-response of the active flter
is shown in Fig. 2. The simulation results of a passive flter
with similar design parameters are also included for
comparison. It can be seen that the active flter provides a
loss less transfer characteristic with very high group-delay
values at the passband edge. Furtermore, the active flter
achieves low-noise characteristics, owing to the proper noise
design of its active resonators. The excess noise sources of the
active flter cause less than 1 dB noise-fgure degradation in
the passband, in comparison with the passive flter.
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An X-band microwave oscillator is designed using the
active elliptic flter described in the previous section. The
oscillator is designed at the fequency point where the active
flter yields its highest passband group-delay value, in order to
minimize the phase-noise. At this fequency, the active flter
achieves a measured group-delay of 21 nS with 2.2 dB
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Measured frequency response of the active elliptic flter.
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Fig. 4. The circuit layout of the fabricated oscillator.

insertion loss, as shown in Fig. 3. This corresponds to a
loaded-quality-factor value of QL =536 for the feedback loop
of the oscillator. The circuit layout of the fabricated oscillator
is shown in Fig. 4. The amplifer in the oscillator loop
employs a packaged SiGe HBT transistor (NESG2030M04)
biased at the collector voltage of 2 V and quiescent current of
D rA. A 6-dB coupler is used to deliver the output signal to a
50 load.
The output spectrum of the oscillator is shown in Fig. 5. The
measured oscillation frequency is 8.15 GHz with an output
power of 10 dBm. The slight shif in the oscillation fequency
is most likely due to the fabrication tolerances. The total
consumed DC power for the oscillator is 160 mW,
corresponding to 6.5% DC-RF effciency. The core oscillator
efciency, not including the active resonators, is 25%. In this
design, optimizing the DC-RF effciency was not a primary
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Fig. 5. Measured output spectrum of the oscillator.
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Fig. 6. Measured phase noise of the fabricated oscillator. Phase
noise at 1 MHz offset from the carrier is about -150 d8c/Hz.
goal. The oscillator's overall effciency can be improved by
employing transistors with low quiescent-currents in the
negative-resistance circuits design. The oscillator's phase
noise is measured by the FM discriminator technique using an
Agilent's E5500A phase-noise measurement system. As
shown in Fig. 6, the oscillator demonstrates a measured phase
noise of -150 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz fequency offset, which is in
good agreement with the simulation results fom AgiJent's
ADS circuit simulator by taking into account the thermal noise
sources. Table I compares the performance of the oscillator
presented in this paper with other reported planar fee-running
oscillators at C and X-band. To the best of our knowledge, the
oscillator presented here has the lowest phase noise among
microwave planar oscillators reported to date.
lMU ZU1U
TABLE I
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Device
Si BJT [1]
HEMT [2]
SiGe HBT
[4]
HEMT [6]
HEMT [7]
Si BJT [12]
This work
(SiGe HBT)
Resonator
Hairpin 9
Resonator
Ring 12
resonator
Passive 8.1
elliptic filter
Active filter 10
Active 10
resonator
Multiple 5.7
split-ring
resonator
Acive elliptic 8.1
filter
VII. Conclusion
L(f (dBc/Hz@
1 MHz)
-132
-116.17
-142.5
-119
-134.4
-144.5
-150
Low phase-noise oscillators can be designed by employing
active elliptic-flters for fequency stabilization. These flters
achieve very high fequency-selectivities due to the high
unloaded-quality-factors of their constituent resonators, as
well as te presence of close-to-passband transmission-zeros
in their transfer fnctions. Proper minimum-noise design of
the active resonators is necessary in order to reduce the impact
of their excess noise sources on the phase-noise of the
oscillators. This is achieved by the minimizing the noise
measure of the negative-resistance circuits used for resonators
loss-compensation.
A low-phase-noise X-band oscillator was designed by
employing a low-noise active elliptic flter in its feedback
network. A compact two-pole dual-mode structure was used
for the flter design. The oscillator, operating at 8.1 GHz with
10 dBm output power, demonstrates a measured phase-noise
of -150 dBclHz at 1 MHz fequency offset. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the lowest phase-noise performance among
the published plana oscillators, to date. Furthermore, the
relatively small size of the flter makes it usefl for the design
of compact low phase-noise oscillators.
The impact of the added-noise introduced by the active
resonators will be discussed in fer details in a fture
joural publication; taking into account the nonlinearities and
ficker-noise sources of the resonators.
J-1-4Z44-oZ-bl1UlZb.UUGZU1 U lLLL ZJ
HLILKLCL5
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