Gk. Montress et al., RESIDUAL PHASE NOISE MEASUREMENTS OF VHF, UHF, AND MICROWAVE COMPONENTS, IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control, 41(5), 1994, pp. 664-679
The results of residual phase noise measurements on a number of VHF, U
HF, and microwave amplifiers, both silicon (Si) bipolar junction trans
istor (BJT) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) field effect transistor (FET)
based, electronic phase shifters, frequency dividers and multipliers,
etc., which are commonly used in a wide variety of frequency source an
d synthesizer applications are presented. The measurement technique ha
s also been used to evaluate feedback oscillator components, such as t
he loop and buffer amplifiers, which can play important roles in deter
mining an oscillator's output phase noise spectrum (often in very subt
le ways). While some information has previously been published related
to component residual phase noise properties, it generally focused on
the flicker noise levels of the devices under test, for carrier offse
t frequencies less than 10 kHz. The work reported herein makes use of
an extremely low noise, 500 MHz surface acoustic wave resonator oscill
ator (SAWRO) test source for residual phase noise measurements, both c
lose-to-and far-from-the-carrier. Using this SAWRO-based test source a
t 500 MHz, we have been able to achieve a measurement system phase noi
se floor of -184 dBc/Hz, or better, for carrier offset frequencies gre
ater than 10 kHz, and a system flicker phase noise floor of -150 dBc/H
z, or better, at 1 Hz carrier offset. The paper discusses the results
of detailed residual phase noise measurements performed on a number of
components using this overall system configuration. Several interesti
ng observations related to the residual phase noise properties of mode
rate to high power RF amplifiers, i.e., amplifiers with 1 dB gain comp
ression points in the range of +20 to +33 dBm, are highlighted.