Low power, high-reliability class-C voltage-controlled oscillator for space application in 28 nm FD-SOI technology

Thousands of satellites orbits around the earth providing billions of people with meteorological and weather information, communications, broadcasting, and navigational information. Satellite services become so omnipresent and essential in our life that the use of satellites in our daily life has often become "invisible". The number of satellites launched into space is increasing every year, heralding a new space race. This new space era encourages the transition from traditional semiconductor technologies used in space, which lag behind the state of the art, to the latest technology nodes that offer high performance at low cost such as 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS technology.In addition to high spectral performance for broadband communications, satellite transceivers must have high reliability and low power consumption, as electricity is a rare commodity in space. Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) is one of the most important circuit blocks in satellite transceivers in terms of power dissipation and overall performance. The thesis work focuses on the design of a new VCO topology for satellite communication with a balanced trade-off between phase noise, reliability, power consumption, and tuning range.