| PHASE Locked Dielectric Resonator Oscillators PLDROs have been in use in the wireless industry since early 1970s. They provide stable low phase noise local oscillators for microwave and millimeter wave radios. Reliability and cost are the two main inconveniences of standard PLDROs. Actually, PLDROs are an expensive solution due principally to the difficulty of producing them in high volume. The standard PLDRO is a high performance solution that needs to be modified in order to increase reliability and enter mass production processes. The modified PLDRO approach presented in this work has several advantages that are intended to increase reliability of the standard PLDRO. The modified PLDRO targets a higher phase detection sensitivity by the use of an intermediate frequency and a "Push-Push" DRO design that reduces oscillator sensitivity to components and manufacturing variations. Research results indicate that the modified PLDRO has excellent phase detector sensitivity, saturated output power, phase noise performance and frequency stability. The modified PLDRO has the same acquisition bandwidth as its DRO tuning bandwidth and the push-push DRO fundamental is rejected by 47 dBc. |
