A new 6 GHz fully integrated low power low phase noise CMOS LC quadrature VCO

Abstract

A new fully integrated low power and low phase noise 6 GHz quadrature VCO is designed and fabricated in standard commercial 0.18 /spl mu/m single-poly, 6-metal CMOS process. The one VCO-core draws only 1.6 mA of current from a 1.8 V supply. Total power consumption - include two VCO-cores and two VCO-buffers -for generating quadrature signal is 18 mW. Measured phase noise at 1 MHz offset from the center frequency is -115 dBc/Hz. It has tuning range of 1.2 GHz with low phase noise performance throughout the tuning range. It meets the requirements for IEEE802.11a and HiperLAN type 2 standards. Low power and low phase noise have been achieved simultaneously by the use of new proposed cascode coupling topology.