phase/frequency noise from voltage noise

I don't think you understood what I said (meant to say) so I'll try again.

Imagine that you have a little black box that contains the function that creates the distortion. This box has an input and an output. If the contents of that box produces an output that depends only on the instantanious value of the input, that box must create balanced side bands.

The filtering of the sidebands will only happen in the high Q tuned circuit, assuming that we are trying to make a low drift oscillator. We can also assume on that basis that the design is done such that the effects of JFET parameters on tuning have been minimized. When this is the case, the sidebands will remain balanced.

When the upper and lower side band components are at 180 degrees to each other, you have phase modulation. When they are in phase, you have amplitude modulation. Any pair of side bands can be broken down into the amplitude modulation component and the phase modulation component. Then you can disregard the amplitude part.

Actually, the 1/F^3 rise continues into the part near the carrier where the tuned circuit curve flattens. For that matter, there is often a sudden increase in the slope at that point to well above the cubed factor. A frequency drift will appear as a 1/F in the graph. A 1/F noise modulation of a capacitance will appear as a sqrt(1/F)

[...]

The OP is talking about a lowish frequency oscillator. Even at high frequencies, the desire is to make the ratio higher. To make the ratio higher you make the impedance even lower. The rule still applies it just gets harder to follow.

Once again I think you've misunderstood or perhaps I've misunderstood you. Remember that I suggested that the amplifier section (FET) be one that has a much higher band width than needed. This and the low terminal impedance to to prevent the modulation of FET parameters from being a problem.

Huh? Do you mean non-linearities in the phase or nonlinearities in the more normal sense of the word.

If you mean in the more normal sense of the word then I disagree as stated above. Non-linearities that operate on the instantanious value always make equal sidebands.

This is a different case. The amplifier in an oscillator has its terminals connected to the frequency determining circuit. The measurement circuit does not.

If we take a perfectly impractical set of cases I think you will see:

Oscillator #1:

We use a simple 2 capacitor divider Voltage on inductor = 20V RMS Voltage from gate to source = 10VRMS

Oscillator #2:

We use the 3 capacitor divider Voltage on the inductor = 10 billion VRms Voltage from the gate to source = 10VRMS

Both have the same signal to noise at the gate of the FET but the second one has about 10^12 less ability for the FET to control the frequency.

Lets say 10fA/sqrt(Hz) and few 100K impedance.

10fA/sqrt(Hz) * 100K = 1nV/sqrt(Hz) so we are in the same range as the noise voltage of a low noise JFET. I have run into this fact in practical circuits.

No, the harmonics are in the noise voltage of the gate of the FET they do not pass through the tuned circuit before they hit the non-linearity in the FET.

It is fairly straight forward if you take a very simplified case:

Imagine we have an extremely non-linear amplifier. The amplifier is assumed to be noiseless and the noise is in a generator, added to the signal just before the amplifier. The input to output function of the amplifier can be represented by a series. Lets just take the first few terms:

Y = X + AX^2

Where: X is the input A is a constant Y is the output

Now we consider X as the sum of (S)ignal and (N)oise.

Y = (S + N) + A(S + N)^2

Y = S + N + AS^2 + 2ANS + AN^2

It is the 2NS that does the dirty work. It will mix noise near the second harmonic down to near the operating frequency. The more nonlinear things are, the bigger A will be and the more 2nd harmoic noise gets shifted down. The higher terms bring the higher frequencies down. As a result, the more nonlinear the circuit is the noisier it is.

Reference left for later look up.

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Actually the gain must be exactly one if the amplitude is constant.

The gain around the loop must be exactly one at the operating frequency. The amplifier's gain does not effect the bandwidth of the system unless we are taking the case of a poorly designed oscillator where the transistor controls the frequency.

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge
Reply to
Ken Smith
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For the 2N3819, a junction FET, the ratio is 200nV/3nV - two orders of magnitude (Vishay-Siliconix datasheet). But this may not really apply to my BF245, where I couldn't find any noise data below 1MHz ...

This was my suspicion: that what appears to be a generally accepted fact for crystal oscillators might not equally apply to LC circuits with their much smaller Q. The smaller Q allows a much wider band of white noise to make it many times around the feedback loop. So, a quantitative estimate of its effect is needed, where the principles should apply to both, LC and crystal oscillators. I had hoped the simplicity of my test

circuit might make this task easy, like it did for the low-frequency flicker noise ...

Sounds somehow familiar ...

... and this is bad news. But I don't believe it applies to a circuit as simple as mine ...

Well, with 1ppm/deg TC compensation and styrofoam insulation, 10^-8 to

10^-9 frequency stability over 10 seconds is no problem for an LC circuit. I am not yet able to see the 10^-10 arrived at for the FET flicker noise - maybe for thermal stability, maybe for other reasons - but what I am seeing could still be the unknown-so-far effect of white noise from the vicinity of f0 ...

I'm trying to understand how different noise contributions affect oscillator circuits; I've no shortage of ideas for more stable circuits. Knowing which contributions matter under what circumstances (in particular knowing how to estimate them beforehand) can be useful in sifting good design ideas from bad ones.

Martin.

Reply to
clicliclic

In article , wrote: [...]

I think you want to look up the LSK170 "improved" version of the 2SK170 for the frequencies you are working at.

IIRC:

White noise comes in as:

Y = A(B^2 + f^2)/f^2

Where: Y is the phase noise in radians RMS at a given frequency offset B is the 3dB bandwidth of the tuned circuit f is the frequency offset from the carrier in radians A is the noise at the input to the perfect part of the FET model

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge
Reply to
Ken Smith

I knew the 2SK117 and 2SK170, but not this one. From the datasheets (mostly read from the graphs and converted, hopefully correctly):

2SK117: 15mS 2.7nV/rtHz @ 10Hz 1.1nV/rtHz @ 1kHz (0.5mA, 10V) 2SK170: 22mS 3.0nV/rtHz @ 10Hz 1.0nV/rtHz @ 1kHz (1mA, 10V) LSK170: 22mS 2.5nV/rtHz @ 10Hz 0.9nV/rtHz @ 1kHz (2mA, 10V)

I guess the LSK170 to be hard to obtain (particularly so in Europe); the

2SK117 and 2SK170 are no problem.

Ken Smith wrote:

I'm not sure how to make use of this formula; it appears to be independent of the oscillation amplitude, in contrast to my naive expectation. Let me therefore propose the following derivation of frequency noise from white amplifier noise near the oscillator frequency f0:

Assume again an observational interval dt = 10s. Coherent "pulling" action over this interval can only be expected from a narrow range of noise with f0-df/2 < f < f0+df/2. Such noise has an approximate coherence time dt =

4/dw = 2/(pi*df). Thus, for coherent action over 10s, we have df = 64mHz.

Guesstimating a white noise density of 6 nV/rtHz for my BF245A at Id=1mA, the coherent noise amplitude is B = 6nV/rtHz * sqrt(64mHz) = 1.5nV. On the other hand, my (measured) oscillation amplitude is A = 0.6V (across each of the tank capacitors).

If the noise happens to have the optimum 90deg phase for pulling, we may write

A*sin(w0*t) + B*cos(w0*t) = sqrt(A^2+B^2) * sin(w0*t+arctan(B/A)).

That is, an extra phase shift dp = arctan(B/A) = B/A = 2.5*10^-9 is introduced (for B

Reply to
clicliclic
[...]
[...]

You are right there is an error. "A" was supposed to be noise/signal.

[....]

How non-linear is the FET being with a 0.6V swing. Remember that frequencies near the harmonics will be mixed down to near the carrier by any non-linear action.

[..]

Colin may well be right he may also be wrong and just lucky. If you change JFETs you may be able to settle the matter.

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge
Reply to
Ken Smith

No serious objections were raised, and I consider the question settled:

Over a 10 second interval, frequency deviations df0/f0 of the order

10^10 can be expected for my simple 60kHz oscillator from each, JFET flicker noise at low frequency and JFET white noise near f0.

Thanks to everybody for having seen me through my labors with this problem,

Martin.

Reply to
clicliclic

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