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A 180 GHz differential Colpitts VCO in 65 nm CMOS

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Abstract

A 180 GHz differential Colpitts VCO in 65 nm CMOS is presented. The choice and placement of the varactors are analyzed with the Y parameters looking into the oscillation loop. Based on this analysis, the varactors are placed close to the source terminal of the transistors to minimize their load effect on the oscillator. The VCO occupies 0.097 mm2 core die area and consumes 21.8 mW DC power from a 1.2 V power supply. The measured tuning range is from 174.9  to 178.9 GHz. The measured output power after calibrating out the measurement conversion loss is −13.15 dBm and the measured phase noise at 10 MHz offset is −94 dBc/Hz.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61222405 and Grant 61331003.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Microelectronics & Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Xiangyu Meng, Zhihua Wang & Baoyong Chi

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  1. Xiangyu Meng
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  2. Zhihua Wang
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  3. Baoyong Chi
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Correspondence to Baoyong Chi.

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Meng, X., Wang, Z. & Chi, B. A 180 GHz differential Colpitts VCO in 65 nm CMOS. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 86, 25–31 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-015-0638-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-015-0638-4

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