Design of Reconfigurable Inductorless RF VCO in 130 nm CMOS

Abstract

The need for low-power and low-cost connected devices supporting several communication standards continues to increase with the rising demand in Internet of Things (IoT) applications. This paper presents a reconfigurable inductorless radiofrequency (RF) voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) capable to work across various frequency bands with a low area. This VCO has an inductor-capacitor (LC) topology though using an active inductor based on a gyrator-C structure. It uses n-bits controlled CMOS inverters for coarse frequency tuning and diode varactor for fine frequency tuning. Implemented in 130-nm CMOS technology, the VCO can cover a frequency tuning of 1.22–2.6 GHz. It achieves a phase noise of – 87 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz with a power consumption of 4 mW from 1.1-V supply. The active die area is only 54 × 59 μm2.