A 130-GHz 0.18-μm CMOS VCO with Enhanced Output Power
To-Po Wang1, Yu-Zhang Nian2

1To-Po Wang, Department of Electronic Engineering and Graduate Institute of Computer and Communication Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.
2Yu-Zhang Nian, Department of Electronic Engineering and Graduate Institute of Computer and Communication Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.
Manuscript received on April 10, 2014. | Revised Manuscript Received on April 12, 2014. | Manuscript published on April 18, 2014. | PP: 18-20 | Volume-1, Issue-5, April 2014.

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© The Authors. Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: A 130-GHz cross-coupled push-push voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with enhanced output power is proposed in this paper. CMOS VCOs in millimeter-wave (mm-wave) frequency are typical with low output power due to the intrinsic characteristics of MOSFETs. In order to overcome the difficulty, the push-push signal (2fo) are extracted from the middle of inductors and combined with another extracted 2fo signal from the middle of varators. Therefore, the output power can be effectively increased. According to the proposed circuit topology, the 130-GHz VCO has been designed in 0.18- m CMOS process. Simulated results confirm the 130-GHz VCO combing the proposed output power enhancement technique can effectively increase the output power up to 2.8 dB. Operating at 1-V supply voltage, the VCO core consumes 11.1-mW dc power. Moreover, the VCO’s frequency ranges from 125 GHz to 130 GHz, leading to a 4% tuning range. Furthermore, the phase noise of the proposed VCO is -91.9 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offsets from 130-GHz carrier.
Keywords: Phase noise, push-push, voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO).