A 148-GHz regenerative sampling oscillator

This paper presents a regenerative sampling oscillator for the simultaneous regeneration of phase and amplitude, which enables highly efficient QAM schemes in the mm-wave range to reach multi-Gb/s data rates. A nonlinear model is derived to study the phase regeneration and the startup behavior of the oscillator and is simulated in CADENCE. A cross-coupled circuit is fabricated in a 0.13-μm SiGe BiCMOS technology with an oscillation frequency of 147.6 GHz, which is higher than any published regenerative oscillator capable of phase regeneration to date. It achieves a regenerative gain of 36 dB and a free-running output power of -6 dBm with only 48 mW dc power including buffers. This provides a viable solution to the problem of high-frequency gain without compromising the dc power consumption.