Mixed Signal MMIC for 10GHz Multifunction Frequency Syntheses and Modulations

This proposal presents an innovative low power and low noise MMIC for 10GHz multifunction frequency syntheses and modulations using advanced SiGe technology. The architecture includes an ultrahigh-speed direct digital synthesizer (DDS) with a maximum clock frequency of 10~12GHz to synthesize and modulate the intermediate frequency (IF) of 1GHz and above. It uses a low-noise phase lock loop (PLL) to generate both the DDS clock and the quadrature carriers at 10~12GHz. The high-speed DDS includes a patent pending delta-sigma noise shaper and a sinusoidal weighted digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with 11-bit resolution and 12-bit phase input to achieve better than -60dBc spectral purity. The DDS modulation waveform configurations include chirp, step frequency, FM, MSK, PM, AM, QAM, and other hybrid modulations. The modulated IF frequency is mixed with the carrier frequency using quadrature mixers with image rejection. The proposed final MMIC using 7HP SiGe technology is expected to achieve the world record spurious performance at the world record clock frequency of 10~12GHz. Meanwhile, the proposed MMIC is affordable, low power, and provides complete modulation functions and waveform generations with up to 5GHz modulation bandwidth.