A 1 V 2.2 mW 7 GHz CMOS Quadrature VCO Using Current-Reuse and Cross-Coupled Transformer-Feedback Technology

Abstract

A current-reused quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (CR-QVCO) is proposed with the cross-coupled transformer-feedback technology for the quadrature signal generation. This CR-QVCO has the advantages of low-voltage/low-power operation with an adequate phase noise performance. A compact differential three-port transformer, in which two half-circle secondary coils are carefully designed to optimize the effective turn ratio and the coupling factor, is newly constructed to satisfy the need of signal coupling and to save the area consumption simultaneously. The quadrature oscillator providing a center frequency of 7.128 GHz for the ultrawideband (UWB) frequency synthesizer use is demonstrated in a 0.18 mum RF CMOS technology. The oscillator core dissipates 2.2 mW from a 1 V supply and occupies an area of 0.48 mm2. A tuning range of 330 MHz (with a maximum control voltage of 1.8 V) can be achieved to stand the frequency shift caused by the process variation. The measured phase noise is -111.2 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from the center frequency. The IQ phase error shown is less than 2deg. The calculated figure-of-merit (FOM) is 184.8 dB.