A WIDE-TUNABLE TRANSLINEAR 2ND-ORDER OSCILLATOR

This paper describes the design and measurement of a translinear secon d-order oscillator, The circuit is a direct implementation of a nonlin ear second-order differential equation and follows from a recently dev eloped synthesis method for dynamic translinear circuits. It comprises only two capacitors and a handful of bipolar transistors and can be i nstantaneously controlled over a very wide frequency range by only one control current, which indicates its suitability for spread-spectrum communications, Its total harmonic distortion can be made small by the design, which enables fully integrated transmitters, A semicustom tes t chip, fabricated in a standard 2-mu m, 7-GHz, bipolar IC process, op erates from a single supply voltage, which can be as low as 2 V and os cillates over six decades of frequency with -31 dB total harmonic dist ortion.