A 0.114-mW dual-conduction class-C CMOS VCO with 0.2-V power supply

Abstract

This paper proposes a dual-conduction class-C CMOS VCO for ultra-low supply voltages. Two cross-coupled NMOS pairs with different bias points are employed, which realize impulselike current waveform to improve the phase noise in the low supply conditions. The proposed VCO was implemented in a standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology, which oscillates at a carrier frequency of 4.5GHz with a 0.2-V supply voltage. The measured phase noise is −104 dBc/Hz@1MHz-offset with a power consumption of 114 μW, and FoM is −187 dBc/Hz.