Nowadays, terahertz and sub-terahertz frequencies are experiencing a significant interest from both academic and industrial world, since they offer a wide and unused spectrum available for different applications, as high-throughput communications, efficient imaging systems and medical uses. In this work an innovative sub-THz voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) realized with a 130-nm SiGe process is proposed and described in detail. The technology is the SG13G2 bipolar-complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) provided by IHP foundry. The signal source is conceived for high-resolution THz imaging camera; at design level it has been defined with a push-push architecture and adopts an oscillator core based on a Colpitts topology. State-of-the-art performance has been obtained thanks to the proposed design choices that are uncommon at these frequencies, as for instance, the VCO output taken from the common base node, the use of varactors in anti-series connection and the possibility to define a double output at different harmonic frequencies. These, as well as other innovative expedients, allow to simplify the integration at system level and to achieve compact sizes, very low power consumption and almost constant output power level over the full tuning bandwidth. A relative tuning range of about 5.5% has been obtained around a central frequency of 330 GHz, while the output power is about − 8 dBm with a maximum variation of 0.4 dB. Also the phase noise of − 110 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset is very promising. Measurements over different chip samples demonstrate the robustness of the proposed solution and the reliability of the design.

中文翻译：

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采用130nm SiGe BiCMOS的紧凑型低功耗恒定输出功率330 GHz压控振荡器

如今，太赫兹和次太赫兹频率引起了学术界和工业界的极大兴趣，因为它们提供了广泛且未使用的频谱，可用于不同的应用，例如高通量通信，高效的成像系统和医疗用途。在这项工作中，提出并详细描述了采用130 nm SiGe工艺实现的创新型次THz压控振荡器（VCO）。该技术是由IHP铸造厂提供的SG13G2双极互补金属氧化物半导体（BiCMOS）。信号源是为高分辨率太赫兹成像摄像机而设计的；在设计级别，它已经​​定义为推-推架构，并采用基于Colpitts拓扑的振荡器核。由于在这些频率下不常见的建议的设计选择，因此获得了最新的性能，例如，从公共基节点获取的VCO输出，在反串联连接中使用变容二极管以及可能性在不同的谐波频率下定义双倍输出。这些以及其他创新的权宜之计，可以简化系统级的集成，并实现紧凑的尺寸，极低的功耗以及在整个调谐带宽上几乎恒定的输出功率。在330 GHz的中心频率附近获得了约5.5％的相对调谐范围，而输出功率约为− 8 dBm，最大变化为0.4 dB。同样，在10 MHz偏移处的− 110 dBc / Hz的相位噪声也很有希望。