A 72.7-90.4 GHz VCO with a Stacked NMOS based Tuning Network in 28-nm FDSOI

A wideband VCO with a stacked NMOS based tuning network designed in 28-nm FDSOI is presented in this paper. By changing the tuning voltage of the tuning network, the oscillation frequency of the cross-coupled VCO varies from 72.7 to 90.4 GHz, resulting in a 21.7 % frequency tuning range (FTR). The achieved output power ranges from 5.1 to 7.9 dBm for the entire FTR, with a core circuit DC power consumption of 28 mW. The simulated phase noises are -82 to -87 and -107 to -109 dBc/Hz at 1 and 10 MHz offset, respectively. The VCO core circuit occupies 0.003mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> of die area, including the tuning network.