UC Santa Cruz

Rotary Traveling Wave Oscillators (RTWO) use a transmission line connected as a closed loop as their resonant element. This allows the use of spatial degrees of freedom, not available in typical L-C oscillator topologies, in the design of the amplifier needed to sustain the oscillating mode. Here we present a novel amplifier design that takes advantage of this extra degree of freedom to improve performance of RTWOs in two ways. If no precautions are taken then the oscillation mode can start in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction. The Phased Amplifier, introduced here, forces one direction of oscillation with a measured probability of reverse oscillation of less than 0.43ppm with a confidence level of 99%. No reverse oscillations were observed in 107 trials. This is accomplished by adding additional phase dependent degeneration transistors and phase shifting the various amplifier inputs by taking them from different locations on the transmission line. Additionally this amplifier design reduces the phase noise by reducing the amplifier noise during the time that the oscillator is most sensitive to phase perturbation, resulting in a 1.2dB reduction in phase noise measured at 1MHz and a 2.9dB improvement in the figure of merit compared to a gate-offset amplifier topology.