• 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 Society Of Semiconductor Equipment Technology
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• 2005.09a
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• pp.160-164
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• 2005

In this paper, MEMS inductor was integrated on a 5GHz VCO using BCB as low-k dielectric layer for MEMS inductor. The VCO core circuit is realized by IBM SiGe process. We varied the spiral inductor's suspension height and posit ion on circuit, and studied their circuit interference effect on VCO performance. The VCO with inductor placed on BCB with More height and the VCO with inductor that was not positioned above active area showed better characteristics.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.95-104
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• 2011

In this paper, the metamaterial transmission line (TL) based on the complementary spiral resonators (CSRs) and interdigital structure is presented for reducing the phase noise of the voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). The metamaterial TL is realized by adopting the array of the CSRs etched on the ground plane and the interdigital transmission line on the signal plane. The interdigital TL on the signal plane has been used to obtain higher Q value than the conventional TL without the interdigital structure. The resonance properties and inherent saturation of Q value of the proposed metamaterial TL have been analyzed by varying the width of the TL on the signal plane, dimensions of the CSRs, current directions between the CSRs, number of the unit cell-pair of the CSRs, and whether or not there is the interdigital structure in this paper. The phase noise and tuning range of the proposed VCO are -127.50~-125.33 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz and 5.744~5.852 GHz.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.158-162
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• 2015

A low phase noise CMOS voltage controlled oscillator(VCO) for multi-band/multi-standard RF Transceivers is presented. For both wide tunability and low phase noise characteristics, Hybrid inductor which uses both bondwire inductor and planar spiral inductor in the same area, is proposed. This approach reduces inductance variation and presents high quality factor without custom-designed single-turn inductor occupying large area, which improves phase noise and tuning range characteristics without additional area loss. An LC VCO is designed in a 0.13um CMOS technology to demonstrate the hybrid inductor concept. The measured phase noise is -121dBc/Hz at 400KHz offset and -142dBc/Hz at 3MHz offset from a 900MHz carrier frequency after divider. The tuning range of about 28%(3.15 to 4.18GHz) is measured. The VCO consumes 7.5mA from 1.3V supply and meets the requirements for GSM/EDGE and WCDMA standard.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.30-35
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• 2006

This paper describes fully integrated low phase noise MMIC voltage controlled oscillators(VCOs). The Asymmetrical Inductance Tank VCO(AIT-VCO), which optimize the shortcoming of the previous tank's inductance optimization approach, has lower phase noise performance due to achieving higher equivalent parallel resistance and Q value of the tank. This VCO features an output power signal in the range of - 11.53 dBm and a tuning range of 261 MHz or 15.2 % of its operating frequency. This VCO exhibits a phase noise of - 117.3 dBc/Hz at a frequency offset of 100 kHz from carrier. A phase noise reduction of 15 dB was achieved relative to only one spiral inductor. The AIT-VCO achieved low very low figure of merit of -184.6 dBc/Hz. The die area, including buffers and bond pads, is $0.9{\times}0.9mm^2$.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.55-60
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• 2014

For an high speed communication, a 40GHz VCO was implemented using a 0.11um standard CMOS technology. The mm-wave VCO was designed by a LC type using a spiral inductor, and a simplified architecture with buffers and a smart biasing technique were used to get a high performance. The frequency range of the proposed VCO is 34~40GHz which is suitable for mm-Wave communication system. It has an output power of -16dBm and 16% tuning range. And the phase noise is -100.33dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset at 38GHz fundamental frequency. The total power consumption of VCO including PADs is 16.8mW with 1.2V supply voltage. The VCO achieves the FOMT of -183.8dBc/Hz which is better than previous VOCs.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics A
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• v.33A no.7
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• pp.121-126
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• 1996

In this paper an MMIC VCO which can be used in a double conversion TV tuner is designed, fabricated and measured. The VCO is designed using the small signal method and fabricated using ETRI GaAs MMIC foundry. The 3x200$\mu$m gate width MESFET with 1$\mu$m gate length is used for an active device and MIM capacitors, spiral inductors, thin film resitors are used as passive elements. The VCO has output power of 10.95dBm at 1955 MHz with 5V bias voltage and 4V tuning voltage. The oscillation frequency change form 1947 MHz to 1964 MHz is obtaine dby an external varactor diode connected to the gate with a tuning voltage from 0 V to 6V.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.83-87
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• 2004

Phase noise performance and current consumption of Radio Frequency (RF) Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO) are largely dependent on the Quality (Q) factor of inductor-capacitor (LC) tank. Because the Q-factor of LC tank is determined by on-chip spiral inductor, we designed, analyzed, and modeled on-chip differential inductor to enhance differential Q-factor, reduce current consumption and save silicon area. The simulated inductance is 3.3 nH and Q-factor is 15 at 2 GHz. Self-resonance frequency is as high as 13 GHz. To verify its use to RF applications, we designed 2 GHz differential LC VCO. The measurement result of phase noise is -112 dBc/Hz at an offset frequency of 100 kHz from a 2GHz carrier frequency. Tuning range is about 500 MHz (25%), and current consumption varies from 5mA to 8.4 mA using bias control technique. Implemented in $0.35-{\mu}m$ SiGe BiCMOS technology, the VCO occupies $400\;um{\times}800\;um$ of silicon area.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.325-328
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• 2020

This paper demonstrated a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) using cost-effective (1-poly 6-metal) mixed signal standard CMOS process. To have the high-quality factor inductor in LC resonator with thin metal thickness, patterned-ground shields (PGS) was adopted under the spiral to effectively reduce the ac current of low resistive Si substrate. And, because of thin top-metal compared with that of RF option (2 ㎛), we make electrically connect between the top metal (M6) and the next metal (M5) by great number of via array along the metal traces. The circuit operated from 2.48 GHz to 2.62 GHz tuned by accumulation-mode varactor device. And the measured phase noise of LC VCO has -123.7 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset at 2.62 GHz and the dc-power consumption shows 2.07 mW with 1.8V supply voltage, respectively.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.270-273
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• 2003

The design, fabrication, and measured result of a 4.7 GHz differential VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) for a 5.2 GHz WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) applications is presented. The circuit is designed in a 0.35 mm technology employing three metal layers. The design is based on a fully integrated LC tank using spiral inductors. Measured tuning range is 10% of oscillation frequency with a control voltage from 0 to 3.0 V. Oscillation power of $\square$ 2.3 dBm at 4.63 GHz is measured with 21 mA DC current at 3V supply. The phase noise is $\square$ 104.17 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset.