Phase noise reduction using active biasing

An investigation of phase noise in amplifier and voltage-controller oscillator (VCO) circuits was conducted to show that active direct-current (DC) bias techniques exhibit lower phase noise performance than traditional resistive DC bias techniques. Low-frequency high-gain amplifiers like those found in audio applications exhibit much better 1/f phase noise performance and can be used to bias amplifier or VCO circuits that work at much higher frequencies to reduce the phase modulation caused by higher frequency devices. An improvement in single-side-band (SSB) phase noise of 15 dB at offset frequencies less than 50 KHz was simulated and measured. Residual phase noise of an actively biased amplifier also exhibited significant noise improvements when compared to an equivalent resistive biased amplifier.