C-band oscillator using high-Q inductors embedded in multi-layer organic packaging

We present C-band oscillators with external high-Q inductors: wire-bond inductors and embedded inductors in a Multi-Layer Organic (MLO) board fabricated by a thick-film MCM-L technology. The phase-noise performance of oscillators are compared with the oscillator using on-chip inductors. Inductors are designed to obtain high quality factor in C-band. The phase-noise performance of the oscillator with on-chip inductors measures -108 dBc/Hz at 600 KHz offset frequency, and that of the oscillator with external inductors shows -113 dBc/Hz at the same offset. Using MLO inductors, the phase-noise is better than the oscillator with on-chip inductors and comparable to the oscillator with wire-bond inductors. To our knowledge, this is the first C-band oscillator using inductors embedded in the multi-layer organic packaging technology. This is also the first report comparing the performance of oscillators using three different inductor technologies: on-chip integration, wire bonding, and multi-layer organic packaging technology.