A Low-Power Microwave HEMT $LC$ Oscillator Operating Down to 1.4 K

Abstract

High-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) based on 2-D electron gases (2DEGs) in III-V heterostructures have superior mobility compared with the transistors of silicon-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technologies. The large mobility makes them attractive not only for low-noise and high-power microwave applications but also for low-power applications down to deep cryogenic temperatures. Here, we report on the design and characterization of a low-power HEMT LC Colpitts oscillator operating at 11 GHz whose minimum power consumption is 90 µW at 300 K and 4 µW at 1.4 K. The fully integrated oscillator is based on a single HEMT transistor having a gate length of 70 nm and realized using a 2DEG in In 0.7 Ga 0.3 As. The power consumption of the realized oscillator is the lowest reported in the literature so far for an LC oscillator operating in the same frequency range. In order to investigate the behavior of the oscillator, we also performed a detailed characterization of a stand-alone HEMT transistor from 1.4 to 300 K with a static magnetic field from 0 to 8 T. From the extracted values of the transistor parameters, we estimate and compare the minimum power necessary to start-up oscillations for two different Colpitts topologies.

Investigation on Temperature Behavior for a GaAs E-pHEMT MMIC LNA

“…After verification and analysis, the main reason for this degradation is that the rising temperature can lead to an increase in the output resistance ( ) [ 10 , 24 ]. Meanwhile, is expressed as [ 8 , 27 ]: …”

“…After verification and analysis, the main reason for this degradation is that the rising temperature can lead to an increase in the output resistance (𝑅 ) [10,24]. Meanwhile, 𝑅 is expressed as [8,27]: According to Equation ( 5), as the temperature rises, R ds increases due to the reduction in µ, which causes more power dissipation. Therefore, the Pout drops.…”

A low-noise on-chip coherent microwave source

“…In general, there are several approaches pursued in the field of integrated control of quantum systems, including cryogenic semiconductor-based techniques, or even those based on optical-to-microwave transducers 35 . Semiconductor-based oscillators have been demonstrated with the output power of about 0.2 µW at 1.5 K 48 . Full semiconductor-based cryogenic control systems have been demonstrated at the operating temperatures of a few kelvin, with power consumption of the order of 100 mW 49 .…”

“…Note that the horizontal axis is in the units of power, whereas in the case of Adler theory, it is often in the units of voltage. 29 10 mK 0.255 pW 22 kHz N/A Double-quantum-dot 26 10 mK 0.2 pW 5.6 kHz -99 dBc/Hz at 1.3 MHz SiGe HBT oscillator 60 4 K 0.2 µW 200 kHz -112 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz Cryogenic HEMT oscillator 48 1.4 K 0.2 µW N/A -112 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz…”

A Cryo-CMOS Oscillator With an Automatic Common-Mode Resonance Calibration for Quantum Computing Applications

“…Eventually, the full integration is envisioned when the cryo-CMOS controller is cointegrated with advanced "hot" qubits operating at ∼1-4.2 K on the same die or package [7], [8], [9]. To this end, significant effort has been made in the last decade to demonstrate the feasibility of building blocks for quantum computing applications at cryogenic temperatures (CT) [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32].…”