Abstract
An ultra-wideband Voltage-Controlled Oscillator based on the Colpitts
structure is proposed in this work. The entire circuit consists of four
Colpitts VCO cores operating at different frequency. Every VCO core
employs two single-ended Colpitts oscillators arranged back-to-back and
sharing a common LC resonating tank. The coupling coefficient between
the two single-ended Colpitts oscillators is increased by introducing a
transformer placed on the emitter node of the core transistor, which
ensures two Colpitts oscillators oscillating in a differential mode.
Furthermore, a series of amplifier circuits, including a fundamental
frequency amplifier, second harmonic amplifier, and frequency
multiplier, are employed to amplify the second harmonic signal and
convert it into a differential signal, thereby expanding the operating
bandwidth of the oscillator. The fundamental frequency of the proposed
Colpitts VCO ranges from 3.5 GHz to 7GHz, and the frequency can reach up
to 14GHz or 28GHz by generating second or fourth harmonics. The measured
phase noise performance is lower than -130dBc/Hz, -124dBc/Hz and
-118dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset across the entire frequency range. The power
dissipation of the entire VCO is typically around 60mW under 3.3V power
supply.