Waveguide tuner stabilized ultra low phase noise 60 GHz SiGe:C oscillator MMIC

In this paper we report an on-wafer waveguide tuner set-up and demonstrate its use in the design of an off-chip cavity based oscillator MMIC for 60 GHz. Measured oscillators discussed in the paper operated at frequencies of 59.3579 GHz, 59.3581 and 60.4495GHz with phase noise levels at 1MHz carrier offset of -122.68 dBcHz^-1, -123.11 dBcHz^-1 and -120.75 dBcHz^-1 respectively. To the authors' knowledge, these are the lowest values reported to date in this frequency range. The simulation approach used is based on a small-signal description and agrees very well with measured oscillation frequencies.