Analysis and Design of Power Supply Circuits for RF Oscillators

This article presents guidelines for designing the power supply blocks of RF oscillators. To preserve their spectral purity, the requirements on the noise and ripple of the supply voltage are firstly evaluated based on the oscillator supply pushing factor and the oscillator Figure-of-Merit (FOM). Those specifications are then employed to design and estimate the power efficiency of an analog low-dropout regulator (LDO) and a switched-capacitor DC-DC converter. As a proof of concept, a 2:1 or 3:2 switched-capacitor DC-DC converter is implemented and directly connected to our previously published 4.9 - 5.5 GHz LC oscillator. The converter provides a 1V supply voltage with a noise ≤ 0.9nV/√Hz at 1MHz and does not affect the inherent phase noise of the oscillator. The ripple amplitude of the converter is 30mV while its effect is suppressed by the spur reduction block embedded in the oscillator.