166% frequency tuning range power VCO using high-quality off-chip inductor

Abstract

This work presents a complementary PMOS NMOS voltage-controlled power oscillator (VCO) based on a high quality (Q) factor off-chip inductor in 130 nm CMOS process. The proposed VCO achieves a frequency tuning range of 166% from 393 MHz to 4.17 GHz and this wide tuning range is divided into six bands where each band is also sub-divided into three bands using a single switching voltage. The proposed design takes into consideration the effect of the bond wire that is used to connect the off-chip inductor with the VCO core moreover, the measured SNP files of the off-chip inductors are utilized to ensure accurate results. This technique improves the figure of merit (FoM) by 4–25 dB compared to the conventional inductor VCO. Using six different values of the off-chip inductors, the proposed VCO works in six bands with a tuning range of 166%, and a minimum phase noise of − 127 dBc/Hz @ 1 MHz offset frequency 2.2 GHz carrier. Furthermore, the proposed VCO draws 1.37 mA from 1.1 V supply voltage and has a minimum achieved Figure-of-Merit (FOM) equal to -193 dBc/Hz with a maximum output power of 4.25 dBm. The VCO core area equals 0.07 {mathrm{mm}}^{2}, while the total chip area including RF pads and output buffers is {0.437mathrm{ mm}}^{2}.