The Designer's Guide Community
Forum
Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register. Please follow the Forum guidelines.
Aug 17th, 2024, 7:23pm
Pages: 1
Send Topic Print
How to measure a varactor's capacitanc (Read 3735 times)
Tim
New Member
*
Offline



Posts: 1

How to measure a varactor's capacitanc
Jul 10th, 2007, 4:06pm
 
Hi, All experts

I am a beginner in RF design. I am doing VCO. Does anyone know how to
measure a varactor's capacitance (i.e. capacitance v.s. frequency) in cadence?
Someone told me I could use S-Parameter to measure it. But I still can't  get it.
Anyone can tell me in detail. Thanks

Tim
Back to top
 
 
View Profile   IP Logged
topquark
Community Member
***
Offline



Posts: 61
Thames Valley, UK
Re: How to measure a varactor's capacitanc
Reply #1 - Jul 12th, 2007, 4:25am
 
Hi Tim

first off, you can already see the cap you're setting in the schematics, right?  :D
For MOS varactors, you specify the W/L  and you can see the cap value
well, cap vs. freq will be constant but impedance vs. freq is what you're looking for..uh?
If you go by S-parameters, you can get Zin/Zout as function of frequency 'n then calculate cap.

Or, simply run an ac sim with a standalone varactor 'n you can characterize Cap vs. voltage bias which will be required for your VCO tuning.

Hope this helps
Back to top
 
 
View Profile   IP Logged
neoflash
Community Fellow
*****
Offline

Mixed-Signal
Designer

Posts: 397

Re: How to measure a varactor's capacitanc
Reply #2 - Jul 15th, 2007, 5:41am
 
u should notice that in LC-tank, the capacitance matters is not small-signal capacitance, instead, it is the large signal averaged capacitance.
Back to top
 
 
View Profile   IP Logged
jlee
Community Member
***
Offline



Posts: 40

Re: How to measure a varactor's capacitanc
Reply #3 - Jul 15th, 2007, 7:01am
 
If small signal SP is performed, use the following equation to get C vs freq curve with the calculator in Spectre.

C=imag(y(1,1))/2/pi/xval(imag(y(1,1)))

Maybe more accuracy results can be obtained by PSS+PSP.
Back to top
 
 
View Profile   IP Logged
Pages: 1
Send Topic Print
Copyright 2002-2024 Designer’s Guide Consulting, Inc. Designer’s Guide® is a registered trademark of Designer’s Guide Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved. Send comments or questions to editor@designers-guide.org. Consider submitting a paper or model.