A 0.082mm<sup>2</sup> 24.5-to-28.3GHz Multi-LC-Tank Fully-Differential VCO Using Two Separate Single-Turn Inductors and a 1D-Tuning Capacitor Achieving 189.4dBc/Hz FOM and 200±50kHz 1/f<sup>3</sup> PN Corner
Hao Guo, Yong Chen, Pui‐In Mak, Rui P. Martins
Abstract
This paper reports a capacitive-coupling multi-LC-tank fully-differential VCO with wideband 1/f <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> phase noise (PN) corner reduction. It features two separate single-turn inductors and a differential-mode 1D-tuning capacitor bank to realize high-quality-factor high-impedance resonances at the 1x-to-2x of the oscillation frequency. Prototyped in 65nm CMOS technology, the VCO occupies 0.082mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> and measures a tuning range (TR) of 24.5 to 28.3GHz. The FOM is 189.4dBc/Hz and the TR-insensitive 1/f <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> PN corner is 200±50kHz.