48 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 13, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2003

Low Cost Microwave Oscillator Using Substrate

Integrated Waveguide Cavity
Y. Cassivi and K. Wu, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—A topology is proposed for designing a low-cost mi-

crowave oscillator. This new feedback oscillator makes use of a sub-
strate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity that acts as a frequency
selector as well as a feedback-coupling device. The oscillator is sta-
bilized by using an injection-locking scheme. A 12.02-GHz oscil-
lator prototype was designed. Experimental results for phase noise,
locking range, and quality factor of the new circuit are presented.
An external of 178 was measured.
Index Terms—Cavity, feedback oscillator, phase noise, substrate
integrated waveguide (SIW).

I. INTRODUCTION

T HE SEARCH for low-cost microwave and mil-

limeter-wave oscillators has stimulated a rapid de-
velopment of many new concepts [1]–[3]. Recently, a new Fig. 1. Topology of the proposed SIW feedback oscillator.
scheme called substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) [4]–[6]
was presented and developed as an attractive technique for “synthesized” rectangular waveguide [4]. The spacing “ ” be-
low-loss, low-cost and high-density integration of microwave tween the two rows determines the frequency band of the guide.
and millimeter-wave components and sub-systems. In partic- Almost no leakage exists along the guide if the metallized holes
ular, it was shown that high- resonant cavities could be built spacing “ ” is equal or smaller than twice the diameter of the
with such a technique [7]. This led to the development of a metallized hole (this diameter should be equal or smaller than
novel SIW oscillator in this work. This oscillator can provide a tenth of the wavelength of the maximum frequency of opera-
low phase noise because of high of the SIW cavity. tion). In our case, we use a via hole diameter of 0.8 mm, which
The topology of the proposed oscillator is illustrated in Fig. 1. gives us a maximum operating frequency of 38GHz.
It is a feedback circuit composed of an amplifier and an SIW In [6], it was shown that propagation properties of the
cavity that is formed on the same dielectric substrate. The SIW TE -like mode in the SIW are very similar to the TE mode
cavity acts as a frequency selector and at the same time as a cou- of a rectangular guide. So, an SIW cavity can be designed by
pling device for the positive feedback loop. This can effectively using the following relation:
get rid of a conventional externally mounted resonator (e.g., di-
electric block). A 20-dB directional coupler is also added in the (1)
circuit for injection locking purpose of the oscillator. Finally,
ports and are added for phase and gain tuning of the where
open loop, as suggested in [8]. Jumpers and are used
to open or close the feedback loop. (2)
In this letter, we will first discuss the topology and the design
and is the diameter of the metallized hole. Equation (1) pro-
of the SIW cavity. Then, we will explain the design of the oscil-
vides a good first approximation for the dimensions and
lator. Finally, we will present its experimental results as well as
of the cavity (see Fig. 1). Current probes are used to connect
its electrical performances.
the cavity to the microstrip lines. Such probes are formed by
short-circuited sections of coplanar waveguide. Dimensions
II. SIW CAVITY DESIGN and determine the level of coupling to the cavity. As the
An SIW structure consists of two separate rows of metallized probes are comparable in size to the cavity, they can change its
holes made in a dielectric substrate to form a dielectrically filled frequency of resonance. Therefore, a three-dimensional (3-D)
electromagnetic simulator, such as [9], is necessary to accu-
Manuscript received July 3, 2002; revised August 6, 2002. The review of this rately design the cavity. Of the three probes, one is used as an
letter was arranged by Associate Editor Dr. Shigeo Kawasaki. output port and one to couple power to the positive feedback
The authors are with the Poly-Grames Research Center, École Poly- loop. To adjust the coupling level, which depends on the gain of
technique de Montréal, Montréal, QC H3V 1A2 Canada (e-mail: cas-
sivy@grmes.polymtl.ca; wuke@grmes.polymtl.ca). the amplifier, probe lengths , , and width are changed.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2003.808720 Coupling level from 4 dB to 20 dB can easily be achieved.
1531-1309/03$17.00 © 2003 IEEE
CASSIVI AND WU: LOW COST MICROWAVE OSCILLATOR USING SUBSTRATE INTEGRATED WAVEGUIDE CAVITY 49

Note that this coupling scheme does not provide any isolation
between the feedback loop and the output port . So
impedance mismatch at the port will affect the oscil-
lator.

III. FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR DESIGN

The design of a feedback oscillator can be done using only
a linear circuit simulator. First, a small signal amplifier is de-
signed. The amplifier is combined with the SIW cavity. Then,
the feedback loop is added on. The coupling level of the SIW
cavity is adjusted so that the gain of the loop is slightly higher
than 1 dB, as indicated in [8], to take into account the gain drop
of the amplifier when it is in saturation. The loop length is also
adjusted so to obtain 0 phase difference. Small stubs are placed
in the loop to make fine tuning adjustment of the loop phase.
After the circuit is constructed, the loop gain and phase mea- Fig. 2. Simulation results of the SIW cavity (obtained with [9]).
surements are done for fine tuning [8].

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

A 12-GHz feedback oscillator was designed and constructed.
The amplifier used here is the ATF36077 low noise pHEMT
transistor from Agilent. Small signal gain of the amplifier is
7 dB, with of 5 dBm. The cavity is designed with a cou-
pling level of 5.8 dB. Dimensions of the cavity, as sketched in
Fig. 1, are: mm, mm, mm,
mm, mm, mm, mm,
mm and mm. For the coupling probe,
mm, and mm. The feedback loop length is
42.5 mm and the microstrip line width is 0.55 mm. The dielec-
tric substrate has a dielectric constant of 2.33 and a thickness of
0.508 mm (Duroid 5870). Simulation results of the cavity are
presented in Fig. 2, showing an insertion loss level of 3.5 dB.
Rejection level of the second harmonic is better than 10 dB.
Note that the coupling level is higher than 15 dB outside the
bandwidth of interest around 12 GHz. This ensures that the os-
cillator will not generate unwanted spurious signals. Finally, a
20-dB microstrip coupler is added near the input of the ampli- Fig. 3. Measured output spectrum of the SIW oscillator.
fier to allow injection locking of the oscillator.
The circuit was built and the open feedback loop was tuned
On the basis of the injection-locking scheme, it is possible to
for appropriate gain and phase using ports and , with
estimate the external factor of the oscillator loop, because of
jumpers and set for an open loop. The gain was ad-
the following relation [11]:
justed by modifying of the coupling probe of the cavity, and
the phase was corrected by tuning the length of the phase stubs.
A free running oscillating frequency of 12.02 GHz was ob- (4)
tained. Fig. 3 shows the output spectrum of the oscillator. The
power output level is 0 dBm if the 10-dB loss of the measure- where is the free running frequency, is the locking
ment setup is taken into account. The maximum harmonic level range, is the output power of the oscillator, and is
is 20 dBc. The free running phase noise was measured fol- the power level of the injected signal in the loop, which is the
lowing the comments in [10] where the following relation is power at port less 20 dB, the 20 dB being the coupling
used level of the directional coupler used at the port. Table I
shows the measurement results. The average measured external
(3) quality factor is 178. Fig. 4 illustrates the phase noise of the
designed SIW oscillator for different injected reference power
With dBm, dBm at a level, compared to the phase noise of the reference oscillator
100 KHz offset, and a resolution bandwidth of 1 KHz on the itself. It shows that an injected signal of 30 dBm is sufficient
spectrum analyzer, a phase noise of 73 dBc/Hz is calculated. to get a phase noise close to the reference source.
50 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 13, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2003

TABLE I SIW cavity scheme. A 12.02-GHz prototype was constructed.

EXTERNAL Q FACTOR OF THE OSCILLATOR CIRCUIT Good phase noise and harmonic level have been obtained. The
external quality factor of the oscillator was measured by using
injection-locking technique. We believe that this oscillator will
be useful in the realization of a low cost microwave and mil-
limeter-wave systems.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank S. Dubé of the Poly-Grames
Research Center for his help in the realization of the oscillator
prototype.

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