A direct digital frequency synthesizer with high-speed current-steering DAC

A high-speed SiGe BiCMOS direct digital frequency synthesizer (DDS) is presented. The design integrates a high-speed digital DDS core, a high-speed differential current-steering mode 10-bit D/A converter, a serial/parallel interface, and clock control logic. The DDS design is processed in 0.35 μm SiGe BiCMOS standard process technology and worked at 1 GHz system frequency. The measured results show that the DDS is capable of generating a frequency-agile analog output sine wave up to 400+ MHz.