Using an in-house MMIC and an off-chip,high-quality varactor, a novel wide band VCO covered Ku band is introduced. In contrast to HMIC technology, this method reduces the complexity of microchip assembly. More importantly,it overcomes the constraint that the standard commercial GaAs pHEMT MMIC process is usually not compatible with highquality varactors for VCO,and it significantly improves the phase noise and frequency tuning linearity performances compared to either MMIC or HMIC implementation. It is a novel and high-quality method to develop microwave and millimeter wave VCO.
