Abstract
This paper presents a bridged contactless measurement technique that can measure the resonant frequency and quality factor of a fully-integrated powered off voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). Unlike the use of the conventional two-coil inductive link, the proposed technique uses an additional inductor to bridge the coupling between the LC tank and the external inductor serving measurement purposes. This makes it possible to examine the on-chip high frequency oscillator with an off-chip inductor at Printed Circuit Board (PCB) level. As an example, a K-band VCO as well as the proposed test structure have been designed and simulated using 0.13 μm CMOS technology. The quality factor and operating frequency of the oscillator are measured using the proposed contactless technique through extraction from the frequency response of a bridged inductive link. The efficiency of the method has been validated by full wave electromagnetic simulation. As a reference, the characterization of the oscillator is also obtained using the Cadence Spectre RF and Mentor Graphic’s Calibre PEX commercial Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software. The results of these two solutions agree considerably well, which supports the feasibility and potentials of using this technique for contactless measurements.
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Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61274034 and 61574125).
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Liu, Z., Yu, XP., Fan, Tl. et al. A Bridged Contactless Measurement Technique for LC Tank Based Voltage-Controlled Oscillator. J Electron Test 33, 261–266 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-017-5657-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-017-5657-x