A CMOS active inductor based digital and analog dual tuned voltage-controlled oscillator

A fully integrated 600 MHz CMOS active inductor based voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is presented. The active floating inductor configuration employs voltage differencing transconductance amplifier as a building block. In the proposed circuit topology, frequency tuning is realized by varying the bias current of the tunable inductor. The designed VCO achieves an output frequency of 450–750 MHz, resulting in the tuning range of 50%. The simulated phase noise lies within −92.37 to −86.16 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset and the VCO draws 426.98–1100 µW from a 1 V supply voltage. The proposed RF oscillator is designed and implemented in a 45-nm CMOS process and its performance is estimated using Virtuoso Analog Design Environment of Cadence.

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