[time-nuts] how to find low noise transistors
Gerhard Hoffmann
dk4xp at arcor.de
Tue Jul 28 14:16:25 UTC 2015
Am 20.07.2015 um 01:57 schrieb KA2WEU--- via time-nuts:
> Good evening, this turns out to be a good discussion...
>
> Any more inputs ? 73 de Ulrich
>
>
1. To get a gut feeling about the virtues of nonlinear noise simulation:
how much phase noise will we typically lose if we stay with linear
simulation? I mean, we have been told so often how important it is that
the amplifier offers a constant (low) impedance to the crystal and that
the smallest nonlinearity would be an invitation to noise up conversion.
It does not take a lot of conversion gain when one looks at -150 dBc.
So, even if we use a HB simulator, the DUT will have to be pretty linear.
2. What do you consider the optimum AGC for, say, a Driscoll or Butler
at 100 MHz? In my current work, most of the logic is triple module
redundant and the oscillator is a single point of failure. Stopping
oscillation at an EFC extreme would be a nightmare, but phase noise
performance still cannot be ignored.
3. Is there any work on AGC vs. post tuning drift?
4. In [1] there are is some treatment about removing 1/f noise of a RF
transistor by active LF feedback. It is applied to a BFR93A and the
effect can be seen clearly. There are other faster transistors that
would need that much more urgently, and for > 40 dB of 1/f noise
probably more loop gain would be required. I can see a place for an
ADA4898 here… Also, there are 1K resistors in the bases of both the RF
and the AF transistors while we are discussing here replicating the
transistors to shrink the effective base spreading resistance. It seems
that the improvement could be much larger.
BTW I got -145dBc @100MHz @100Hz with mass production BFR93 transistors
in Butlers, and the limit seemed to be ONLY the crystal; most crystals
were much worse, even when they had comparable parameters and were from
the same batch.
5. One must always find a balance between optimum close-in or far-out
noise. The emitter input impedance of a 2 stage Butler sustaining
amplifier may serve as an example. Make it small and there will be only
a slight operating Q degradation - but less power available to the input
of the sustaining amp. with a given crystal current; needing more gain
and raising the floor.
Make it larger, and you get less operating Q and better floor.
Only 10% of a crystal batch seem to provide excellent close-in noise,
the others being easily 10 dB worse. These others are more or less free
(at least already paid for). They still could be used as a post-filter
to shrink the noise floor. It would be necessary to de-Q them with
resistors so that they can withstand the power and that they do not
spoil the close-in noise.
Or use a bridge xtal filter that has no crystal resonance on the center
frequency. That would require some discipline when tuning the oscillator
to avoid blowing the filter crystals. Far out the noise still would
decrease by 6 dB/oct Fourier-frequency-wise. 20 dB better makes the
difference between OK and excellent.
[1] Rohde/Newkirk: RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless
Applications, Wiley
very short excerpt for a few days on <
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XUfeAuD8TvNqBOMuJiPtltMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink>
73, Gerhard, DK4XP
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