• The Journal of the Institute of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.139-145
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• 2024

This paper presents the design of a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) which is one of the key building blocks in modern wireless communication systems with small VCO gain (K_vco) variation. To compensate conventional large K_vco variation, a series varactor bank has been added to the conventional LC-tank with parallel capacitor bank array. And also, in order to achieve excellent phase noise performance while maintaining wide tuning range, a mixed coarse/fine tuning scheme(series varactor array and parallel capacitor array) is chosen. The switched varactor array bank is controlled by the same digital code for switched capacitor array without additional digital circuits. For use at a low voltage of 1.2V, the proposed current reference circuit in this paper used a current reference circuit for safety with the common gate removed more safely. Implemented in a TSMC 0.13㎛ CMOS RF technology, the proposed VCO can be tuned from 4.4GH to 5.3GHz with the K_vco (VCO gain ) variation of less than 9.6%. While consuming 3.1mA from a 1.2V supply, the VCO has -120dBc/Hz phase noise at 1MHz offset from the carrier of the 5.3 GHz.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.134-137
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• 2008

This paper proposes a novel quadrature VCO(QVCO) based on direct back-gate second harmonic coupling. The QVCO directly couples the current sources of the conventional LC VCOs through the back-gate instead of front-gate to generate quadrature signals. By the second harmonic injection locking, the two LC VCOs can generate quadrature signals without using on-chip transformer, or stability problem that is inherent in the direct front-gate second harmonic coupling. The proposed QVCO is implemented in $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS technology operating at 2 GHz with 5.0 mA core current consumption from 1.8 V power supply. The measured phase noise of the proposed QVCO is - 63 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset, -95 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset, and -116 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from the 2 GHz output frequency, respectively. The calculated figure of merit(FOM) is about -174 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset. The measured image band rejection is 46 dB which corresponds to the phase error of $0.6^{\circ}$.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.122-128
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• 2007

Sinusoidal voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) based on Colpitts and Hartley oscillators are presented. They consist of a LC parallel-tuned circuit connected in a negative-feedback loop with an OTA-R amplifier and two diode limiters, where the inductor is simulated one realized with temperature-stable linear operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and a grounded capacitor. Prototype VCOs are built with discrete components. The Colpitts VCO exhibits less than 1% nonlinearity in its current-to-frequency transfer characteristic from 4.2 to 21.7 MHz and ${\pm}$95 ppm/$^{\circ}C$ temperature drift of frequency over 0 to $70^{\circ}C$. The total harmonic distortion (THD) is as low as 2.92% with a peak-to-peak amplitude of 0.7 V for a frequency-tuning range of 10.8-32 MHz. The Hartley VCO has the temperature drift and THD of two times higher than those of the Colpitts VCO.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.07c
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• pp.2333-2335
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• 2005

Various CMOS quadrature-voltage-controlled oscillators(QVCOs) are designed and fabricated for the comparison of the phase noise. The core VCO is composed of two Colpitts oscillators which are cross-coupled with PMOS pair. For the comparison of phase noise with the proposed scheme, the conventional LC VCO followed by the frequency-divide-by-two is designed. The simulation result demonstrate that the proposed scheme shows better phase noise performance by 6dB than that of a conventional scheme in which LC VCO is followed by the frequency-divide-by-two.

• Proceedings of the Korea Electromagnetic Engineering Society Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.21-24
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• 2002

This paper presents a fully integrated, wide tuning range differential CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator, tuned by pMOS-varactors. VCO utilizing a novel tuning scheme is reported. Both coarse digital tuning and fine analog tuning are achieved using pMOS-varactors. The VCO were implemented in a 0.18-fm standard CMOS process. The VCO tuned from 1.8㎓ to 2.55㎓ through 2-bit digital and analog input. At 1.8V power supply voltage and a total power dissipation of 8mW, the VCO features a phase noise of -126㏈c/㎐ at 3㎒ frequency offset.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.283-286
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• 1999

A 2㎓, low noise, low power CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with an integrated LC resonator is presented. The design of VCO relies heavily on the on-chip spiral inductor. An optimized spiral inductor with Q-factor of nearly 8 is achieved and used for the VCO. The simulated result of phase noise is as low as -l14 ㏈c/Hz at an offset frequency of a 600KHz from a 2㎓ carrier frequency. The VCO is tuned with standard available junction capacitors, resulting in an about 400MHz tuning range (20%). Implemented in a five-metal 0.25${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ standard CMOS process, the VCO consumes only 2㎽ from a single 2.5V supply. It occupies an active area of 620${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$$\times$720${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• summer
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• pp.218-220
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• 2004

A new wide-band VCO topology using Miller capacitance is proposed. Contrary to conventional VCO using the Miller capacitance where the variable amplifier gain is negative, the proposed VCO uses both the negative and positive variable amplifier gain to enhance the frequency tuning range significantly. The proposed VCO is simulated using HSPICE. The simulations show that 410MHz and 220MHz frequency tuning range are obtained using the negative .and positive variable amplifier gain, respectively. The tuning range of the proposed VCO is $23\%$ of the center frequency(2.8GHz). The phase noise is -104dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset by simple model. The operating current is only 3.84mA at 2.5V power supply.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2002.07b
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• pp.770-773
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• 2002

Two sinusoidal voltage-controlled oscillators using linear operational transconductance amplifiers are presented in this paper: One is based on the positive-feedback bandpass oscillator model and the other on the negative-feedback Colpitts model. The bandpass VCO consists of a noninverting amplifier and a current-controlled LC-tuned circuit which is realized by two linear OTA's and two grounded capacitors, while the Colpitts VCO consists of an inverting amplifier and a current-controlled LC-tuned circuit realized by three linear OTA's and three grounded capacitors. Prototype circuits have been built with discrete components. The experimental results have shown that the Colpitts VCO has a linearity error of less than 5 percent, a temperature coefficient of less than rm 100 ppm/$^{circ}C$, and a $pm1.5 Hz $frequency drift over an oscillation frequency range from 712Hz to 6.3kHz. A total harmonic distortion of 0.3 percent has been measured for a 3.3kHz oscillation and the corresponding peak-to-peak amplitude was 1V. The experimental results for bandpass VCO are also presented.

• Proceedings of the Korea Electromagnetic Engineering Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.234-238
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• 2003

In this work, we have designed a fully integrated 2.4GHz LC-tuned voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with multiple tuning inputs for a $0.25-{\mu}m$ standard CMOS Process. The design of voltage-controlled oscillator is based on an LC-resonator with a spiral inductor of octagonal type and pMOS-varactors. Only two metal layer have been used in the designed inductor. The frequency tuning is achieved by using parallel pMOS transistors as varactors and back-gate tuned pMOS transistors in an active region. Coarse tuning is achieved by using 3-bit pMOS-varactors and fine tuning is performed by using back-gate tuned pMOS transistors in the active region. When 3-bit digital and analog inputs are applied to the designed circuits, voltage-controlled oscillator shows the tuning feature of frequency range between 2.3 GHz and 2.64 GHz. At the power supply voltage of 2.5 V, phase noise is -128dBc/Hz at 3MHz offset from the carrier, Total power dissipation is 7.5 mW.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.699-702
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• 2012

본 논문에서는 WCDMA(Wide Code Division Multiple Access) 시스템 사양을 만족시키는 주파수 합성기 블록 중 위상잡음 및 전력소모의 최적 설계가 필요한 LC-VCO(voltage controlled oscillator)의 설계를 제안 하였다. 최적 설계를 위한 핵심내용은 LC-tank의 손실성분을 보상하는 MOS트랜지스터의 전달컨덕턴스와 인덕턴스 평면에 여유이득라인과 튜닝 범위 라인을 그어 설계 가능한 영역 내에서 위상잡음이 최소가 되는 인덕턴스 값을 구하고 선택하는 것이다. 제안한 최적 설계방법에 의해 진행된 LC-VCO의 시뮬레이션 결과 위상잡음 특성은 1MHz옵셋에서 -113dBc/Hz였다.