Low voltage, low noise, and low power voltage-controlled oscillators

Abstract

As CMOS technologies continue to be scaled down to reduce cost, increase speed, and achieve higher levels of integration, the analog/RF circuits are required to be designed with low supply voltage and low power. By the scaled supply voltage, however, the phase noise of the voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), which is one of key blocks in the wireless system, is severely degraded due to the small output voltage swing. Moreover, the VCO is one of the blocks which have the high power consumption in the wireless transceiver. Therefore, the research for improving the phase noise and the power consumption is needed. In this thesis, for improving the phase noise and power consumption of VCO, we study the phase noise and the power consumption of both ring and LC VCO at the low supply voltage in deep-submicrometer technology. To solve the issues appeared in the study, three VCOs are proposed and explained. The proposed VCOs can be used as a low voltage, low noise, and low power VCO.