A Transformer-Based Inverted Complementary Cross-Coupled VCO with a 193.3dBc/Hz FoM and 13kHz 1/f3 Noise Corner: RFIC Interactive Forum

A Transformer-Based Inverted Complementary Cross-Coupled VCO with a 193.3dBc/Hz FoM and 13kHz 1/f3 Noise Corner

Song Hu, Fei Wang, Hua Wang; Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

This paper presents a transformer-based inverted complementary cross-coupled voltagecontrolled oscillator (VCO) topology. Without compromising the start-up condition, it isolates the source nodes for the cross-coupled devices, suppresses the flicker noise up-conversion, and thus results in a superior phase noise performance. A prototype is implemented in a standard 130nm bulk CMOS process with a core area of 0.34mm2 . At 1.86GHz, the measured FoM is 190.3/192.2/193.3dBc/ Hz at 10k/100k/ 1MHz offsets with a 1/f3 phase noise corner of only 13kHz. The VCO consumes 1.1mA from a 1.5V supply. High FoM and low 1/f3 phase noise corners are consistently achieved over 20.8% frequency tuning range (1.68–2.07GHz).