Assessment of the impact of technology scaling on the performance of LC-VCOs

Abstract

This paper analyzes the scaling of LC Voltage Controlled Oscillator (LC-VCO) implemented in advanced Planar CMOS technologies. An LC-VCO for GSM applications, has been designed in state-of-the-art 45/40nm and 32nm CMOS technologies, exploiting different Front- and Back-End Of Line (FEOL/BEOL) options. The designs are compared with each other and with recent literature in terms of power and Phase-Noise performance.