Sensitivity Improvement of Phase-Noise Measurement of Microwave Oscillators Using IF Delay Line Based Discriminator

The conventional delay-line discriminator method for phase noise measurement is modified to achieve better sensitivity. In the proposed technique, to decrease delay-line loss, the under-test oscillator's microwave frequency is down-converted by another oscillator, and delay-line is implemented in the IF range. Full validation of the technique is presented. In adition, we experimentally demonstrate that system sensitivity is considerably improved compared to the conventional method.