We present a low phase noise four-core triple-band voltage controlled-oscillator (VCO) with reconfigurable oscillator cores and multi-mode resonator. By activation/deactivation of oscillator cores and change of resonator impedance in three modes of operations, the proposed VCO provides complete freedom in selecting the resonance frequency for three operation bands in the mm-wave range. Compared to VCOs using switch-capacitor-bank for multi-band operation, the proposed VCO does not use any series switches with passive components in the resonator to provide a low phase noise in all three bands of operation. As a proof of concept, the proposed four-core triple-band VCO is implemented in a 65 nm CMOS process using four class-D oscillators with tail switches and a compact high-Q triple-mode resonator. The VCO oscillation frequencies center at 19, 28, and 38 GHz while providing good phase noise and low power consumption in all bands. Measured results show the total frequency tuning range (FTR) of 38.5% while the PN at 1MHz offset varies from -100.3 dBc/Hz to -106.06dBc/Hz resulting in an excellent FoMT of 199.8 dBc/Hz.
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A Low Phase Noise 28 GHz VCO Using Transformer-based Q-enhanced Active Impedance Converter
This paper presents a low phase noise 28 GHz
voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) using a transformer-based
active impedance converter to enhance the quality factor (Q) of
the capacitor in the resonator. The active impedance converter
can enhance the Q of a capacitor bank and varactor by 25-40%
across the VCO’s tuning range. The proposed VCO is fabricated
using the proposed transformer-based Q-enhancement
impedance converter in a standard 65 nm CMOS process. The
VCO achieves a 15.9% measured fractional frequency tuning
range and phase noise of −107.6 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from 28
GHz oscillation frequency while occupying only 0.05 mm2 area
(200 μm × 250 μm). The VCO consumes 5.1 mW power, resulting
in an excellent figure-of-merit (FoM) of 189.4 dBc/Hz and a
figure-of-merit-with-area (FoMA) of 202.8 dBc/Hz.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2030159
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10351769
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE International Microwave Symposium
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/IMS37962.2022.9865389
