A low power and low noise p-HEMT ku band VCO

In this letter, we report a differential 12-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) implemented using a commercial GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (p-HEMT) process. The VCO can operate with 3mW of dc power. The single-side-band phase noise at 1-MHz offset from the carrier is -116dBc and is achieved with 15mW of dc power consumption. This VCO has a figure of merit of -190.5dBc which is the best that has been reported for a p-HEMT VCO in the authors' knowledge