Wide Tuning Range Varactorless Tunable Active Inductor-Based Voltage Controlled Oscillator for Wireless Applications

Abstract

This paper presents a varactorless tunable active inductor-based voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) in 90[Formula: see text]nm CMOS process. The proposed VCO yields a wide tuning range of 116% with an output frequency of 1.19–4.46[Formula: see text]GHz for the tuning voltage of 0.3–1.5[Formula: see text]V. It consumes a low dc power ranging from 2.44[Formula: see text]mW to 4.79[Formula: see text]mW for the specified tuning range. The variation of phase noise ranges from [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]dBc/Hz to [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]dBc/Hz at 1[Formula: see text]MHz offset with the change of tuning voltage as well as tuning frequency. The proposed varactorless VCO has a maximum Figure of Merit (FOM) of [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]dBc/Hz with a differential output power of 1.8[Formula: see text]dBm at tuning voltage of 0.7[Formula: see text]V. The elimination of varactor which abates the silicon area consumption and the minimization of the variation of performance parameters are the special outcomes of the proposed active inductor-based VCO. Comparing the performance parameters such as power consumption, FOM and tuning range, the proposed design outperforms most of the cited designs.