A 1.6 GHz low-voltage BiCMOS VCO

In this paper a 1.6 GHz Low power VCO circuit has been designed and tested in a 0.8 μm BiCMOS technology. The VCO can operate at less than 1.5 V operating voltage and it takes only 3.6 mA current. The VCO has differential output to drive double balanced mixers. The output power at 1.6 GHz is -7 dBm and -2 dBm at 800 MHz. Phase noise properties have been improved with external resonator. With high Q coaxial resonator the phasze noise is -119 dBc/Hz at 200 kHz offset frequency.