Abstract
This paper presents a Class-C voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with bias voltage calibration that automatically finds the low-phase noise point and achieves robust start-up regardless of PVT variation. This VCO structure also has the bias circuit that compensates for temperature changes even when calibration is not applied. Through these techniques, the problems of robust start-up and vulnerability to PVT variation, which are chronic problems of Class-C VCO, are overcome. The proposed VCO was designed in a 28 nm CMOS process. Simulation results show that this VCO has an operating range from 3.717 to 4.675 GHz, resulting in a frequency tuning range (FTR) of 22.8%. In addition, power consumption was 2.135 mW, phase noise at 1 MHz was −124.1 dBc/Hz, and the figure of merit (FoM) was −192.2 dBc/Hz. The chip area was very small at 0.196 mm2.
Highlights
In transceiver design for wireless communication, one of the key blocks included in the phase-locked loop (PLL) is a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO)
Class-C VCO and calibration block introduced in this paper were designed as Samsung 28 nm CMOS process
A 4 GHz Class-C VCO was implemented with digital bias calibration to optimize the bias voltage and bias circuit load model compensating the temperature changes
Summary
In transceiver design for wireless communication, one of the key blocks included in the phase-locked loop (PLL) is a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). Optimizing the VCO block is very important as it greatly contributes to improving the overall performance of the transceiver [1]. The reduced gate voltage bias shows 36% lower power consumption compared to that of Class-B operation [2]. An optimal bias voltage shows better phase noise performance [3], resulting in a superior figure of merit (FoM)
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