A Wideband Harmonic Shaping VCO With 192-dBc/Hz Peak FoM in 65-nm CMOS
In this brief, a class- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$F_{23}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) aimed at achieving low-phase noise (PN) across the tuning range without manual harmonic tuning is presented. A new head resonator (HR) based on electric coupling is proposed to expand the common-mode (CM) resonance bandwidth at 2nd harmonic (2 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_0$</tex-math> </inline-formula> ) so that the 1/ <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f$</tex-math> </inline-formula> noise is suppressed. The electric coupling preserves the ability to recover CM resonance bandwidth from manufacture variations. The higher differential-mode (DM) resonance frequency is positioned between 2 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_0$</tex-math> </inline-formula> and 3 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_0$</tex-math> </inline-formula> to mitigate Groszkowski’s frequency shift caused by the DM harmonic current. Implemented in a 65-nm CMOS process with a die area of 0.198 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{mm}^2$</tex-math> </inline-formula> , the VCO exhibits a PN of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$-$</tex-math> </inline-formula> 122.5 dBc/Hz at a 1-MHz offset from 8 GHz, corresponding to a peak figure of merit (FoM) of 192 dBc/Hz.
Authors
- Taotao Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1070-889X)
- Cao Wan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7094-606X)
- Shuai Deng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2365-1944)
- Pei Qin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1743-2200)
- Xiongyao Luo
- Quan Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4226-2127)
- Xiang Yi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0330-737X)
Institutions
- Key Laboratory of Guangdong Province (CN)
- South China University of Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- IEEE Microwave and Wireless Technology Letters
- Published
- 2025-01-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1109/lmwt.2024.3520965
- Primary Topic
- Semiconductor Lasers and Optical Devices
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities