A low-voltage multi-GHz VCO with 58% tuning range in SOI CMOS

Abstract

A low-voltage 3.0-5.6 GHz VCO was designed and fabricated in an 0.13 μm SOI CMOS process. This VCO features a single-loop horseshoe-shaped inductor and an array of band-switching accumulation MOS (AMOS) varactors. This results in good phase noise and wide tuning range of 58.7% when tuned between 0 to 1.4 V. At a I V supply (VDD) and 1 MHz offset, the phase noise is-120 dBc/Hz at 3.0 GHz, and-114.5 dBc/Hz at 5.6 GHz. The power dissipation is between 2 and 3 mW across the whole tuning range. The buffered output power is-7 dBm. When VDD is reduced to 0.83 V, the VCO dissipates less than 1 mW at 5.6 GHz.