High-Performance Harmonic-Rich Single-Core VCO With Multi-LC Tank: A Tutorial
Yong Chen, Pui‐In Mak, Rui P. Martins
Abstract
This brief overviews the development of high-performance single-core voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) employing a multi-LC tank over the past two decades. From the circuit-design perspective, we study the key breakthroughs for constantly heightening the figure-of-merit and lowering the 1/f <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> phase-noise corner, according to the noise <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">source</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">transfer</i> , <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">narrow</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">wideband</i> performance optimization, as well as one- and two-dimensional (1D/2D) tuning. We also aim to present the prospects of single-core VCOs.