A low phase noise quadrature VCO using super‐harmonic coupling technique in 65‐nm CMOS technology

Abstract

SummaryThis paper presents a new low phase noise (PN) quadrature voltage controller oscillator (QVCO), which includes four class C LC‐VCOs oscillated at 13 GHz operating frequency with 45‐degree phase differences from each other. By combining the second harmonics (super‐harmonic) of the LC‐VCOs, the quadrature outputs with low PN at 26 GHz are generated. To assess the performance of the proposed QVCO, post‐layout simulations are performed in 65‐nm CMOS technology with a 0.6 V supply voltage. The post‐layout results represent that the proposed circuit has 26 GHz quadrature outputs with the PN of −116.4 at 1 MHz offset frequency. Also, the proposed QVCO occupies an area of 0.366 mm2 and consumes 10.4 mW of power. Therefore, the proposed QVCO is a good candidate for 5G applications.