13 GHz CMOS Active Inductor LC VCO.pdf

138 IEEE MICROWAVE AND PONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 22, NO. 3, MARCH 2012 13 GHz CMOS Active Inductor LC VCO Domenico Zito , Member, IEEE , Domenico Pepe , Member, IEEE , and Alessandro Fonte , Member, IEEE Abstract— A 13 GHz active inductor LC voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) has been realized in 90 nm CMOS technology by ST-Microelectronics. The VCO consists of plementary cross-coupled pairs, an active LCtank implemented by means of a differential high- ? low-noise active inductor and two p-MOSFET varicaps, and an output buffer stage. The measurements show a phase noise of ???????? at 1 MHz frequency offset. The current consumption of the VCO core and differential boot-strapped inductor amount to and mA, respectively, from a V supply voltage. Index Terms— Active inductor, CMOS, microwave radiometer, phase noise, RF, voltage controlled oscillator (VCO). I. I NTRODUCTION V OLTAGE controlled oscillators (VCOs) provide key per- formance in munication systems. Used for the frequency synthesis, they are affected by phase noise (PN), whichis oneof the mostrelevant mechanismsresponsible for the signal degradation munication systems. The reduction of the PNis dealt with efforts at different levels: technology, design and topology. Asfor the topology, the large numbers of LCVCO circuit solutions proposed are originated in large part from the cross-coupl