Abstract
A 0.6-V low-power VCO by using TSMC 0.18-μm CMOS process has been
proposed. For lowering phase noise, injection-locked enhancement and
bulk-driven technologies are proposed. The injection-locked enhancement
technology reuses second order harmonic signals of the oscillation
signals through the injection-locked capacitors with the enhancement
circuit. The buck-driven technology provides extra transconductance for
the cross-coupled pair. The proposed technologies can enlarge the
fundamental signal power of the oscillation signals for lowering the
phase noise. The measured results show the phase noise at 1 MHz offset
frequency from the carrier signal is -118.16 dBc/Hz with 1/f3 corner
frequency of 23 kHz while the control voltage is 0.6 V. The frequency
tuning range is from 2.33 to 2.37 GHz under power consumption 1.3 mW.
The figure of merit at 1 MHz offset frequency from the carrier signal is
-184.43 dBc/Hz.