A 1.3V Low Phase Noise 2-GHz CMOS Quadrature LC VCO

Abstract

A 2 GHz quadrature CMOS LC voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) has been designed in a standard 0.18-mum SiGe-BiCMOS process for direct conversion transceiver. Consuming total 8.5 mA of current from a 1.3 V power supply, the quadrature VCO achieves a measured single-sideband phase noise of -120 dBc/Hz at 1.0 MHz offset frequency. The VCO achieves -3 dBm of carrier power to a 50-ohm load and tuning range of 300 MHz to meet requirements for the WCDMA standard. Series-coupled technique for achieving quadrature phase lock with low phase error (< 0.6deg) and low phase noise is presented