A 4-Port-Inductor-Based VCO Coupling Method for Phase Noise Reduction

A 4-port-inductor-based voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) coupling technique is introduced to improve VCO phase noise performance. The analysis of the stability of oscillation modes and the phase noise performance of a coupled oscillator is provided as theoretical fundamental. Four-port inductors are compared with typical two-port inductors, and their superior performance over the latter is demonstrated through analysis and measurements. The design strategies of coupled VCOs using 4-port inductors are discussed. Two coupled VCO topologies, the NMOS-cross-coupled-pair coupled VCO (NCVCO) and the complementary-cross-coupled-pair coupled VCO (CCVCO), are proposed and compared with the conventional NMOS-cross-coupled-pair VCO (NVCO). Prototype designs have been demonstrated to verify the analysis. The 12.8-GHz CCVCO design achieves phase noise of -116 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset, a tuning range of 31.4%, and FOM and FOMT of 184 and 194, respectively.

[1]  Ali M. Niknejad,et al.  The “load-thru” (LT) de-embedding technique for the measurements of mm-wave balanced 4-port devices , 2010, 2010 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[2]  Tetsuro Endo,et al.  Mode analysis of a multimode ladder oscillator , 1976 .

[3]  D. Pozar.  Microwave Engineering , 1990 .

[4]  A. Hajimiri,et al.  Design issues in CMOS differential LC oscillators , 1999, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits.

[5]  Ali Hajimiri,et al.  A general theory of phase noise in electrical oscillators , 1998 .

[6]  J. Fisher,et al.  A 10 Gb/s SONET-compliant CMOS transceiver with low cross-talk and intrinsic jitter , 2004, 2004 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37519).

[7]  Ali M. Niknejad,et al.  A 4-port-inductor-based VCO coupling method for phase noise reduction , 2011, IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference 2010.

[8]  M. Lax.  Classical Noise. V. Noise in Self-Sustained Oscillators , 1967 .

[9]  Franz X. Kärtner,et al.  Analysis of white and f-α noise in oscillators , 1990, Int. J. Circuit Theory Appl..

[10]  Ali M. Niknejad,et al.  9.6/4.8 GHz dual-mode voltage-controlled oscillator with injection locking , 2006 .

[11]  K. Masu,et al.  A 0.98 to 6.6 Hz Tunable Wideband VCO in a 180nm CMOS Technology for Reconfigurable Radio Transceiver , 2006, 2006 IEEE Asian Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[12]  J.-B. Begueret,et al.  A 10GHz Distributed Voltage Controlled Oscillator for WLAN Application in a VLSI 65nm CMOS Process , 2007, 2007 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium.

[13]  Ali Hajimiri,et al.  Concepts and methods in optimization of integrated LC VCOs , 2001, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits.

[14]  F. Kaertner.  Determination of the correlation spectrum of oscillators with low noise , 1989 .

[15]  K. Stephan,et al.  Analysis of interinjection-locked oscillators for integrated phased arrays , 1987 .

[16]  A.M. Niknejad,et al.  A 1.8-GHz LC VCO with 1.3-GHz tuning range and digital amplitude calibration , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[17]  K. Kurokawa,et al.  The Single-Cavity Multiple-Device Oscillator , 1971 .

[18]  Roc Berenguer,et al.  Design and Test of Integrated Inductors for RF Applications , 2003 .

[19]  Xudong Cao,et al.  Phase noise in coupled oscillators: theory and experiment , 1997 .