Quadrature Oscillator Research Articles

Design of 0.13 µm low power CMOS subharmonic mixer for DCR applications

ABSTRACT This paper presents a design of 2.4 GHz folded subharmonic active mixer in TSMC 130 nm CMOS process for direct conversion receiver (DCR). To achieve the low supply voltage, the folded topology is adopted for the proposed subharmonic mixer. The complementary current reuse structure is used as RF transconductance stage where the biasing for the PMOS and NMOS transistors are self-biased by a resistor to support high conversion gain at low supply voltage. Frequency doubling operation is done by the mixing core which is driven by a quadrature local oscillator (LO) signals. The proposed mixer is designed and simulated using ADS (Advanced Design System) simulator with Cadence software. It produces 10.5 dB conversion gain, a single sideband) noise figure of 9.5 dB, 2 LO-to-RF isolation of 53 dB, LO-to-RF isolation of 117 dB, RF-to-IF isolation of 55 dB and IIP3 of −7.5 dBm. The quadrature LO subharmonic mixer consumes 824μW power from a supply voltage of 0.8 V. The proposed mixer is compared with existing subharmonic mixers. The comparison shows the proposed subharmonic mixer gives a good Figure of Merit.

Analytical Synthesis and Implementation of Low-Frequency Precision Electronically Controlled CFOA – Based Quadrature Oscillator

Analytical Synthesis and Implementation of Low-Frequency Precision Electronically Controlled CFOA – Based Quadrature Oscillator

I/Q Balance-Enhanced Wideband Receiver Front-End for 2G/3G/4G/5G NR Cellular Applications

In this paper, an in-phase (I) and quadrature-phase (Q) balance-enhanced wideband receiver RF front-end is proposed using a quadrature sampling passive mixer configuration, which can be applicable to 2G/3G/4G/5G new radio (NR) applications. Compensating mixer switches are additionally utilized in parallel with main mixer switches in a quadrature mixer for quadrature downconversion. As a consequence, gain and phase errors from the mixer can be mutually compensated at the mixer output, and I/Q imbalance characteristics are significantly improved without an extra calibration process. For the verification of I/Q balancing improvement, the receiver front-end is implemented, which consists of a wideband low noise transconductance amplifier, a double-balanced quadrature sampling passive mixer, transimpedance amplifiers, and quadrature local oscillator signal circuitry. The demonstrated design is fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process and mainly characterized in long-term evolution (LTE) frequency bands. The implemented design achieves an error-vector magnitude of less than 2% with conversion gains and noise figures of more than 41 dB and less than 4.7 dB for all frequency bands, respectively. Moreover, the design attains in-band and out-of-band IIP3s of higher than −12 dBm and −2.7 dBm for LTE frequency division duplexing test conditions, respectively. The active die area of the implemented receiver front-end is 0.72 mm2. It draws a bias current of 18.2 mA from a nominal supply voltage of 1.2 V.

Integer- and Fractional-Order VCO Using Non-Inertial Amplitude Stabilization and Modern Active Elements

This paper introduces design of the linearly tunable quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) using modern off-the-shelf active elements suitable for the design of electronically adjustable applications. The simplified topology was achieved using non-inertial stabilization of amplitude. It allows targeting adjustability of the oscillation frequency only into lossless integrator part of the topology. This arrangement simplifies the design and the tenability also. Derived symbolical expressions indicate that gain adjustment of used amplifiers (that are still in single path) does not influence amplitude and phase shift ratio of generated waveforms, which is a beneficial feature. The performances of the circuit are tested experimentally in band of units of MHz and results confirmed expected behavior. Initial study of the oscillator with fractional-order capacitors is presented and discussed. Results are supported by laboratory measurements.

Phase noise analysis of source injection coupled quadrature oscillator

SummaryThis paper analyzes the thermally induced phase noise and the up‐conversion of flicker noise into phase noise of source injection coupled quadrature oscillator (SIC‐QOSC), for the first time. Furthermore, this paper provides a complete analysis for the injection current of the SIC‐QOSC and extracts the closed‐form expressions for it for the first time, too. These expressions lead to obtaining the harmonics of the injection current as well as the oscillation amplitude, which is necessary for the phase noise analysis. To evaluate the extracted equations, this paper compares the calculated results with appropriate simulations. Comparisons confirm the accuracy of the proposed injection current expressions and the phase noise formulas. Using the closed‐form equations of phase noise, designers can understand the SIC‐QOSC's design tradeoffs and design the oscillator for given phase noise.

Current/Voltage Controlled Quadrature Sinusoidal Oscillators for Phase Sensitive Detection Using Commercially Available IC.

This paper presents the quadrature sinusoidal oscillators for a phase sensitive detection (PSD) system. The proposed oscillators are design by using the commercially available ICs (LT1228). The core oscillator consists of three LT1228s: two grounded capacitors and one resistor. By adding four resistors without the requirement of additional active devices, the amplitudes of two quadrature waveforms become adjustable. The quadrature output nodes are of low impedance, which can be connected to the impedance sensor or other circuits in a phase sensitive detection system without the need of buffer devices. The amplitudes of the quadrature waveform are equal during the frequency of oscillation (FO) tuning. The frequency of oscillation is electronically and linearly controlled by bias current or voltage without affecting the condition of oscillation (CO). Furthermore, the condition of oscillation is electronically controlled without affecting the frequency of oscillation. The performances of the proposed oscillators are experimentally tested with ±5 voltage power supplies. The frequency of the proposed sinusoidal oscillator can be tuned from 8.21 kHz to 1117.51 kHz. The relative frequency error is lower than 3.12% and the relative phase error is lower than 2.96%. The total harmonic distortion is lower than −38 dB (1.259%). The voltage gain of the quadrature waveforms can be tuned from 1.97 to 15.92. The measurement results demonstrate that the proposed oscillators work in a wide frequency range and it is a suitable choice for an instrument-off-the-shelf device

A comparative study between Class-C and Class-B quadrature voltage-controlled power oscillator for multi-standard applications

In this paper a 0.35 ​mW Class-C/B series coupling quadrature voltage-controlled power oscillator (S-QVCO) based on the coupling between two identical LC VCOs is presented. The S-QVCO is designed using a 130 ​nm CMOS technology and it is suitable for multi-standard applications. High quality factor inductor is designed using the two top metal layers to enhance the phase noise performance of the VCO, also an improved switching varactor is used to achieve dual bands. The proposed QVCO achieves tuning range of 28.2% from 2.3 to 3.07 ​GHz, and low phase noise of −119.2 dBc at a 1-MHz offset frequency from 2.7 ​GHz carrier. By biasing the proposed QVCO in class-C, the DC current is reduced to 0.35 ​mA compared to 1.48 ​mA in class-B from 1 ​V supply voltage. The minimum achieved Figure-of-Merit (FOM) equals −192 dBc/Hz and the maximum given output power is 6.5 dBm. The phase error between quadrature output signals is maximum of 0.25° . The occupied area of the proposed QVCO equals0.34mm2, while the total chip area including RF pads is1mm2.

Supplementary CCII based second-order universal filter and quadrature oscillators

A voltage-mode universal biquadratic filter and two quadrature oscillators (QOs) based on CCIIs namely second-generation current conveyors are proposed. The proposed filter with one output and three inputs consists of two CCIIs, three resistors and two capacitors. It can provide all the standard second-order universal filter transfer functions with appropriate choice of input voltages. It also has the orthogonal control of the quality factor and angular resonance frequency. However, a resistive matching condition is required for the all-pass responses. The first proposed QO includes two CCIIs, three resistors and two grounded capacitors while the second one is composed of three plus-type CCIIs, three resistors and two grounded capacitors. By a single grounded resistor, oscillation frequencies of both of the proposed QOs can be controlled orthogonally. Furthermore, in order to confirm the theory, a lot of simulation and experimental results are given.

300-GHz InP HBT Quadrature VCO With Integrated Mixer

A 300-GHz quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (QVCO) integrated with a pair of mixers based on an InP heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology has been developed. A super-harmonic coupling technique was applied to generate the quadrature signal in the QVCO. The oscillation frequency tuning range is 24.8 GHz (from 286.1 to 310.9 GHz), and the frequency range maintaining the quadrature operation (within ±10°) is 4.8 GHz (297.2–302.0 GHz). The maximum output power of the QVCO was measured as 0.46 dBm at 286.3 GHz. The measured phase noise is −91.4 dBc/Hz with 10 MHz offset at 294.2 GHz. The integrated QVCO-mixer consumes a dc power of 167.5 mW.

Electronically controllable third-order quadrature sinusoidal oscillator employing CMOS-OTAs

This paper describes a voltage mode third-order quadrature sinusoidal oscillator (TOQSO) based on operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs). The proposed configuration uses three OTAs and three grounded capacitors. Outputs of two voltage mode sinusoids with 90° phase difference are found in the proposed oscillator circuit. The condition of oscillation and frequency of oscillation are independently electronically controllable by separate transconductances of the OTAs. The performance of TOQSO is tested by SPICE (version 16.5) simulation using TSMC 0.18 µm technology parameters and experimental results employing CA3080 type IC OTAs have been presented to confirm the workability of the proposed new configuration.

New Electronically Tunable Low-frequency Quadrature Oscillator Using Operational Transresistance Amplifier

ABSTRACT This paper describes, a new realization of electronically tunable low-frequency quadrature sinusoidal oscillator (LFSO) based on Operational transresistance amplifier (OTRA). The proposed structure employs two OTRAs, along with four resistors and three capacitors. The notable properties of the proposed oscillator are: (1) it bares independent controllability of frequency of oscillation (FO) through resistors without altering the condition of oscillation (CO) and vice versa; (2) suitable for MOS-C realization making FO electronically tunable (3) exhibits low passive sensitivities (4) enjoys good frequency stability properties. Besides, the roots of the characteristic equation are evaluated to calculate the condition for startup oscillations, which results in altering the property of uncoupling tuning between CO and FO to orthogonal tuning. Furthermore, the nonideal behaviour of proposed LFSO has been examined using single pole model of the OTRA. The proposed LFSO was simulated using Spectre in Cadence employing generic Process Design Kit (GPDK) 0.18 μm CMOS process. The post-layout, schematic-driven simulation results obtained agree firmly with the theoretical formulations. The total harmonic distortion (THD) is found to be below 3%.

Active‐C Realization of Multifunction Biquadratic Filter and Third‐Order Oscillator

AbstractThe paper introduces a new circuit of voltage‐mode multifunction biquadratic filter employing one fully differential second‐generation current conveyor, three active resistors, and two capacitors. The circuit uses metal oxide semiconductor‐based active resistors instead of passive resistors to make the circuit more suitable for monolithic integration as well as to provide additional feature of electronically controllable pole frequency. Low‐pass, high‐pass, band‐pass, and band‐reject filtering functions are simultaneously realizable without need of any component matching constraints from the proposed multifunction biquadratic filter. Additionally, the nonideal aspects of multifunction biquadratic filter circuit are studied. Furthermore, a third‐order dual‐mode quadrature oscillator is also derived from the low‐pass function of the proposed multifunction filter to check its applicability. The proposed oscillator structure makes the output current readily available from high‐impedance terminals. The performance of both multifunction biquadratic filter circuit and oscillator circuit is examined with the help of HSPICE simulations.

Voltage-variable inductor based linear voltage controlled quadrature oscillator implementation

Voltage-variable inductor based linear voltage controlled quadrature oscillator implementation

Synthesis Approach for Compact VDTA Quadrature Sine-Wave Oscillators with Orthogonal Control

From the nodal admittance matrix (NAM) expansion approach and 16 pathological patterns of the voltage differencing transconductance amplifier (VDTA), two different categories, namely sort A and sort B, of the quadrature sine-wave oscillators-employed VDTAs and grounded capacitors in the current mode are synthesized. In all, four quadrature sine-wave oscillators with two sets of quadrature current outputs are attained. Because canonic number is used for component quantity, the oscillators are appropriate to integrated circuit realization and also provide electronic, linear, and orthogonal adjustments between the oscillation criterion and frequency by means of tuning bias currents of the VDTAs. The paper-and-pencil and simulation analyses as well as experimental analysis have been carried out to check the utilized synthesis approach.

Implementation of RC Oscillator with High-Q Frequency Selection using CCCII.

This article given a second generation current controlled current conveyor positive (CCCII+), second generation current controlled current conveyor negative (CCCII-), Quadrature oscillator with high-Q frequency choosing network and implementing completely different phase oscillators by employing (CCCII+) positive and (CCCII-) negative, and high band pass filter network, the approach is predicted on the CMOS technology . The root of this concept is, considering a customary voltage mode oscillator which consists of band pass filter with prime quality issue (high-Q) and voltage mode amplifier is transfigure into current mode oscillator by replacing tans-conductance amplifier. Because the loop of the oscillator is has lavish selectivity, the oscillator process less distortion. In addition 3dB bandwidth, oscillating condition, oscillation frequency of the oscillator could linearly, independently and electronically be tuned by adjusting the bias current of the (CCCII±)[1], lastly different simulations have been carried out to verify the linearity between output and input ports, range of frequency operations. These results can justify that the designed circuits are workable.

Arbitrary Waveform Generators Using Current-Controlled Current Conveyor Transconductance Amplifier and Current Conveyor Analog Switches

This paper presents a new amplitude modulation (AM), frequency modulation (FM), amplitude shift keying (ASK), frequency shift keying (FSK), phase shift keying (PSK) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) waveform generators using current current-controlled conveyor transconductance amplifier (CCCTA) and current conveyor analog switches (CCASs). The CCCTA around with capacitors and resistors are used to generate high-frequency carrier which is worked as a quadrature oscillator. The oscillating frequency of oscillator can be controlled using the bias current of CCCTA, therefore FM and FSK waveforms can be obtained by applying information signal through the bias current of CCCTA. Unlike previous waveform generators, proposed circuit uses second generation current conveyor (CCII) to work as CCAS and AM, ASK, PSK and QAM waveforms can be obtained by putting information signals to control switches that realized using CCIIs. The proposed circuit has been simulated using 0.18[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m CMOS [Formula: see text]-well process from TSMC. The simulation results are used to confirm workability of the proposed circuit.

A 37.5–45 GHz Superharmonic-Coupled QVCO With Tunable Phase Accuracy in 28 nm CMOS

This paper presents a new superharmonic coupling structure for millimeter-wave (mmW) quadrature voltage-controlled oscillators (QVCOs) with high phase accuracy and zero voltage headroom. The proposed coupling network can adjust the quadrature error with almost no phase noise penalty. A tail impedance theory for superharmonically coupled oscillators is introduced to analyze the locking mechanism, phase noise, phase accuracy, and phase tunability of the proposed superharmonic QVCO. For verification, a 40 GHz QVCO is fabricated in a 28 nm bulk CMOS process, which exhibits a phase noise of −94.32 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset and 0.18° quadrature error with 8.4 mW power consumption and 18.4% frequency tuning range.

Fully Integrable/Cascadable CM Universal Filter and CM Quadrature Oscillator Using VDCC and Only Grounded Passive Elements

This paper proposes a current mode universal filter circuit, employing two active elements along with four grounded passive components only. The derived circuit realizes all five filtering responses, i.e., low pass (LP), band pass (BP), high pass (HP), band reject (BR) and all pass (AP), simultaneously from high-impedance ports along with the input being fed to low-impedance port, thus making it a fully cascadable filter. In addition, the designed circuit exhibits independent tunability of its quality factor. With the idea of making the proposed filter fully integrable, a resistor-less approach of the configuration has also been discussed. By making slight modifications in the filter configuration, a current mode single-resistance-controlled quadrature oscillator circuit has also been derived. The ideal, nonideal, sensitivity and parasitic analysis have been conducted for the designed configurations. The functionality of the proposed structures is verified by PSPICE simulations using 0.18[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m CMOS technology. The designs have also been verified using PSPICE macro-model of the commercially available IC, i.e., OPA860.

ÜÇÜNCÜ DERECEDEN YENİ BİR QUADRATURE OSİLATÖR TASARIMI

Bu çalışmada, son zamanlarda oldukça fazla dikkat çeken bir aktif eleman olan Terslenmiş Akım Geri Beslemeli İşlemsel Yükselteç (ICFOA) kullanılarak üçüncü dereceden quadrature osilatör devresi sunulmuştur. Topoloji iki adet ICFOA, üç adet kapasitör ve üç adet direnç olmak üzere gerilim modlu ikinci dereceden alçak geçiren filtre ve gerilim modlu integratör yapısının kaskat bağlanıp kapalı çevrim oluşturması ile elde edilmiştir. Sunulan devrenin çalışabilirliği PSPICE benzetim programı ile denenmiş ve teorik sonuçlar ile örtüştüğü görülmüştür. Teorik kesim frekansı 3,979MHz ve benzetim sonucu ölçülen kesim frekansı ise 3,933MHz’dir. Benzetimde 0,35 μm MOSIS parametre seti ve ICFOA CMOS yapısı kullanılmıştır. Önerilen devrenin güç tüketimi 4,83mW’dır.

K‐band low‐power dual‐hybrid‐coupling quadrature voltage‐controlled oscillator

A low-power and low phase noise quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (QVCO) is presented for short range radar systems here. A dual-hybrid coupling (DHC) technique is adopted to increase the output voltage swing. The second harmonic filters are applied to eliminate the phase noise as well as to suppress the phase error. The proposed DHC-QVCO was implemented with a low cost standard 0.18 μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process technology. The oscillation frequency is operated between 19.8 and 21.5 GHz. The tuning range is 8.5%. The phase noise achieves −100.1 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from a carrier frequency of 20.6 GHz. The phase error and gain error are 4.29° and 3.2 dBm, respectively. The core circuit consumes only 5.15 mW from a power supply of 1.5 V. The designed DHC-QVCO has demonstrated the advantages of low-power, low phase noise, and wide tuning range for K-band applications.