Survey of Recent Advances in Microwave Frequency Synthesizers for Next generation Radar, Cellular and Satellite Systems

Advanced SiGe and CMOS processes allow for full integration of high-performance radio solutions integrating fully the LO synthesizer used in traditional radios as well as high-performance clock sources in future RF sampling solutions. This survey talk will present several examples of these high performance solutions highlighting the technologies and architectural choices used to produce state-of-the-art performance. Examples will include cellular basestation quality synthesizers using coupled oscillators to realize GSM quality phase noise of -145dBc/Hz at 800kHz offset with better than -90dBc spurious performance. Other examples will include integrated synthesizers for satellite communications using optimized architectures for low integrated phase noise. Also included will be examples of clocking solutions for GSPS RF converters and for 77GHz automotive radar applications.