[time-nuts] Close-in phase noise question...

wa1zms at att.net wa1zms at att.net
Mon Dec 15 16:53:43 UTC 2008


Looking for comment here...

The background:
I'm working on a sub mm-wave LO chain for
a ham radio application. While chasing issues
of close-in phase (ie: within 1KHz of RF
carrier) by peeling the "layers of the onion",
I'm starting to question the performance of
the MMICs that are used as buffers and amps
following my Wenzel reference OCXOs.

Question(s):
Should any MMIC be allowed to be driven
close to compression or into compression
when striving for best close-in noise?

I know and have seen the NF of a MMIC
degrade while in compression, but my
target right now is close-in noise rather
than broadband noise.

My design, in summary, takes 5MHz up to 630GHz
via several multipliers and PLL stages.

-Brian







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