80 GHz VCO with Slow-wave Coplanar Stripline Synthesized Differential Inductor

This paper presents the design of a mm-wave VCO with high quality factor slow-wave coplanar stripline synthesized inductor. The objective is to show the advantage of using slow-wave coplanar stripline to improve the figure of merit. For that purpose, the proposed VCO is compared to its classical LC-tank VCO counterpart in the same technology. Both VCOs use same varactors and are designed for center frequency of 80 GHz in BiCMOS 55 nm technology. Due to high quality factor (≈38) of slow-wave coplanar stripline, the phase noise is 6 dB better and power consumption is 30% lower than classical LC-tank VCO. The slow-wave coplanar stripline based VCO also achieved 17% higher frequency tuning range. The measured phase noise is −112 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz offset for the proposed VCO with power consumption of 6.3 mW and output power of −3 dBm.

[1]  Liang-Hung Lu,et al.  A V-Band CMOS VCO With an Admittance-Transforming Cross-Coupled Pair , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[2]  Daquan Huang,et al.  A 60GHz CMOS VCO Using On-Chip Resonator with Embedded Artificial Dielectric for Size, Loss and Noise Reduction , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference - Digest of Technical Papers.

[3]  Frank Wang,et al.  CMOS digital controlled oscillator with embedded DiCAD resonator for 58–64GHz linear frequency tuning and low phase noise , 2009, 2009 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest.

[4]  Philippe Ferrari,et al.  Accurate Parametric Electrical Model for Slow-Wave CPW and Application to Circuits Design , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[5]  Shunli Ma,et al.  A 75.7GHz to 102GHz rotary-traveling-wave VCO by tunable composite right /left hand T-line , 2013, Proceedings of the IEEE 2013 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.

[6]  Yang Xu,et al.  Configurable MCPW based inductor for mm-wave circuits and systems , 2010, Proceedings of 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems.

[7]  Zhiqiang Gao,et al.  A 45 GHz CMOS VCO Adopting Digitally Switchable Metal-Oxide-Metal Capacitors , 2011, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters.

[8]  Liang-Hung Lu,et al.  Design of Wide-Tuning-Range Millimeter-Wave CMOS VCO With a Standing-Wave Architecture , 2007, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[9]  T.S.D. Cheung,et al.  On-chip interconnect for mm-wave applications using an all-copper technology and wavelength reduction , 2003, 2003 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, 2003. Digest of Technical Papers. ISSCC..

[10]  Sylvain Bourdel,et al.  81–86 GHz VCO for Backhaul application with S-CPS based differential inductor in BiCMOS 55nm technology , 2015, 2015 IEEE 13th International New Circuits and Systems Conference (NEWCAS).

[11]  K. O. Kenneth,et al.  Millimeter-wave voltage-controlled oscillators in 0.13-μm CMOS technology , 2006, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits.

[12]  Philippe Ferrari,et al.  Slow‐wave high‐Q coplanar striplines in CMOS technology and their RLCG model , 2012 .

[13]  R. B. Staszewski,et al.  High-resolution 60-GHz DCOs with reconfigurable distributed metal capacitors in passive resonators , 2012, 2012 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[14]  E. Pistono,et al.  A Lossy Circuit Model Based on Physical Interpretation for Integrated Shielded Slow-Wave CMOS Coplanar Waveguide Structures , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[15]  Chung-Yu Wu,et al.  Wide Tunning Range 60 GHz VCO and 40 GHz DCO Using Single Variable Inductor , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.