A dual-band voltage-controlled oscillator in 0.13 μm CMOS technology

• Published in: Microelectronics international 2012-07, Vol.29 (3), p.153-162
• Main Authors: Maisurah Mohd Hassan, Siti, Azmi Ismail, Mohd, Emran Farid, Nazif, Fadhil Idham Muhammad, Norman, Ismat Abdul Rahim, Ahmad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Circuit properties; CMOS; Corners; Design engineering; Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Frequency bands; Integrated circuits; Noise; Offsets; Oscillators, resonators, synthetizers; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Tuning; Voltage controlled oscillators
• ISSN: 1356-5362
• DOI: 10.1108/13565361211252917

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to design and implement a fully integrated low-phase noise and large tuning range dual-band LC voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) in 0.13 μm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology.Design methodology approach - Two parallel-connected single-band VCOs are designed to implement the proposed VCO. Adopting a simple and straight-forward architecture, the dual-band VCO is configured to operate at two frequency bands, which are from 1.48 GHz to 1.78 GHz and from 2.08 GHz to 2.45 GHz. A band selection circuit is designed to perform band selection process based on the controlling input signal.Findings - The proposed VCO features phase noise of −104.7 dBc Hz and −108.8 dBc Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency for both low corner and high corner end of the low-band operation. For high-band operation, phase-noise performance of −101.1 dBc Hz and −110.4 dBc Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency are achieved. The measured output power of the dual-band VCO ranges from −8.4 dBm to −5.8 dBm and from −9.6 dBm to −8.0 dBm for low-band and high-band operation, respectively. It was also observed that the power differences between the fundamental spectrum and the nearby spurious tone range from −67.5 dBc to −47.7 dBc.Originality value - The paper is useful to both the academic and industrial fields since it promotes the concept of multi-band or multi-standard system which is currently in demand in the telecommunication industry.