A Multiband, Low Power and Low Phase Noise CMOS Voltage-Controlled Oscillator with NMOS Varactor for UWB Applications

A multiband low power and low phase noise LC-tank Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) is designed for low band channels of the standard IEEE 802.15.4a. The LC-VCO uses the structure of complementary cross-coupled differential negative resistance and tank circuit, which contains varactor arrays for frequency fine-tuning and a spiral inductor. A method that uses resistor tail biasing for reducing the phase noise and the power consumption has been adopted. The circuit is fully designed in TSMC’s 180 nm technology process. The oscillator output provides three center frequencies of 3.5, 4, 4.5 GHz with good phase noises of -113.784, -116.703 and -126.753 dBc/MHZ at 1 MHz offset, while it dissipates 9mW power energy. The proposed LC VCO not only set a good balance between low phase noise and low power consumption, but it is also a highly desired circuit for multiband wireless transceiver systems, which are the major contributions of this proposed design

A New Technique for the Design of Multi-Phase Voltage Controlled Oscillators

© 2017 World Scientific Publishing Company.In this work, a novel circuit structure for second-harmonic multi-phase voltage controlled oscillator (MVCO) is presented. The proposed MVCO is composed of (Formula presented.) ((Formula presented.) being an integer number and (Formula presented.)2) identical inductor–capacitor ((Formula presented.)) tank VCOs. In theory, this MVCO can provide 2(Formula presented.) different phase sinusoidal signals. A six-phase VCO based on the proposed structure is designed in a TSMC 0.18(Formula presented.)um CMOS process. Simulation results show that at the supply voltage of 0.8(Formula presented.)V, the total power consumption of the six-phase VCO circuit is about 1(Formula presented.)mW, the oscillation frequency is tunable from 2.3(Formula presented.)GHz to 2.5(Formula presented.)GHz when the control voltage varies from 0(Formula presented.)V to 0.8(Formula presented.)V, and the phase noise is lower than (Formula presented.)128(Formula presented.)dBc/Hz at 1(Formula presented.)MHz offset frequency. The proposed MVCO has lower phase noise, lower power consumption and more outputs than other related works in the literature.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Monitor-Based In-Field Wearout Mitigation for CMOS RF Integrated Circuits

abstract: Performance failure due to aging is an increasing concern for RF circuits. While most aging studies are focused on the concept of mean-time-to-failure, for analog circuits, aging results in continuous degradation in performance before it causes catastrophic failures. In this regard, the lifetime of RF/analog circuits, which is defined as the point where at least one specification fails, is not just determined by aging at the device level, but also by the slack in the specifications, process variations, and the stress conditions on the devices. In this dissertation, firstly, a methodology for analyzing the performance degradation of RF circuits caused by aging mechanisms in MOSFET devices at design-time (pre-silicon) is presented. An algorithm to determine reliability hotspots in the circuit is proposed and design-time optimization methods to enhance the lifetime by making the most likely to fail circuit components more reliable is performed. RF circuits are used as test cases to demonstrate that the lifetime can be enhanced using the proposed design-time technique with low area and no performance impact. Secondly, in-field monitoring and recovering technique for the performance of aged RF circuits is discussed. The proposed in-field technique is based on two phases: During the design time, degradation profiles of the aged circuit are obtained through simulations. From these profiles, hotspot identification of aged RF circuits are conducted and the circuit variable that is easy to measure but highly correlated to the performance of the primary circuit is determined for a monitoring purpose. After deployment, an on-chip DC monitor is periodically activated and its results are used to monitor, and if necessary, recover the circuit performances degraded by aging mechanisms. It is also necessary to co-design the monitoring and recovery mechanism along with the primary circuit for minimal performance impact. A low noise amplifier (LNA) and LC-tank oscillators are fabricated for case studies to demonstrate that the lifetime can be enhanced using the proposed monitoring and recovery techniques in the field. Experimental results with fabricated LNA/oscillator chips show the performance degradation from the accelerated stress conditions and this loss can be recovered by the proposed mitigation scheme.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

Study Of Design For Reliability Of Rf And Analog Circuits

Due to continued device dimensions scaling, CMOS transistors in the nanometer regime have resulted in major reliability and variability challenges. Reliability issues such as channel hot electron injection, gate dielectric breakdown, and negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) need to be accounted for in the design of robust RF circuits. In addition, process variations in the nanoscale CMOS transistors are another major concern in today‟s circuits design. An adaptive gate-source biasing scheme to improve the RF circuit reliability is presented in this work. The adaptive method automatically adjusts the gate-source voltage to compensate the reduction in drain current subjected to various device reliability mechanisms. A class-AB RF power amplifier shows that the use of a source resistance makes the power-added efficiency robust against threshold voltage and mobility variations, while the use of a source inductance is more reliable for the input third-order intercept point. A RF power amplifier with adaptive gate biasing is proposed to improve the circuit device reliability degradation and process variation. The performances of the power amplifier with adaptive gate biasing are compared with those of the power amplifier without adaptive gate biasing technique. The adaptive gate biasing makes the power amplifier more resilient to process variations as well as the device aging such as mobility and threshold voltage degradation. Injection locked voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) have been examined. The VCOs are implemented using TSMC 0.18 µm mixed-signal CMOS technology. The injection locked oscillators have improved phase noise performance than free running oscillators. iv A differential Clapp-VCO has been designed and fabricated for the evaluation of hot electron reliability. The differential Clapp-VCO is formed using cross-coupled nMOS transistors, on-chip transformers/inductors, and voltage-controlled capacitors. The experimental data demonstrate that the hot carrier damage increases the oscillation frequency and degrades the phase noise of Clapp-VCO. A p-channel transistor only VCO has been designed for low phase noise. The simulation results show that the phase noise degrades after NBTI stress at elevated temperature. This is due to increased interface states after NBTI stress. The process variability has also been evaluated

Advanced CMOS Integrated Circuit Design and Application

The recent development of various application systems and platforms, such as 5G, B5G, 6G, and IoT, is based on the advancement of CMOS integrated circuit (IC) technology that enables them to implement high-performance chipsets. In addition to development in the traditional fields of analog and digital integrated circuits, the development of CMOS IC design and application in high-power and high-frequency operations, which was previously thought to be possible only with compound semiconductor technology, is a core technology that drives rapid industrial development. This book aims to highlight advances in all aspects of CMOS integrated circuit design and applications without discriminating between different operating frequencies, output powers, and the analog/digital domains. Specific topics in the book include: Next-generation CMOS circuit design and application; CMOS RF/microwave/millimeter-wave/terahertz-wave integrated circuits and systems; CMOS integrated circuits specially used for wireless or wired systems and applications such as converters, sensors, interfaces, frequency synthesizers/generators/rectifiers, and so on; Algorithm and signal-processing methods to improve the performance of CMOS circuits and systems

Active Inductor with Feedback Resistor Based Voltage Controlled Oscillator Design for Wireless Applications

This paper presents active inductor based VCO design for wireless applications based on analysis of active inductor models (Weng-Kuo Cascode active inductor & Liang Regular Cascode active inductor) with feedback resistor technique. Embedment of feedback resistor results in the increment of inductance as well as the quality factor whereas the values are [email protected] (Liang) and [email protected] (Weng- Kuo). The Weng-Kuo active inductor based VCO shows a tuning frequency of 1.765GHz ~2.430GHz (31.7%), while consuming a power of 2.60 mW and phase noise of -84.15 dBc/Hz@1MHz offset. On the other hand, Liang active inductor based VCO shows a frequency range of 1.897GHz ~2.522GHz (28.28%), while consuming a power of 1.40 mW and phase noise of -80.79 dBc/Hz@1MHz offset. Comparing Figure-of-Merit (FoM), power consumption, output power and stability in performance, designed active inductor based VCOs outperform with the state-of-the-art

Design Of A 2.4 Ghz Low Power Lc Vco In Umc 0.18u Technology

Tez (Yüksek Lisans) -- İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, 2007Thesis (M.Sc.) -- İstanbul Technical University, Institute of Science and Technology, 2007Bu çalışmada, Bluetooth uygulamalarında kullanılmak üzere 2.45GHz merkez frekansında çalışan, frekans ayarlaması 2.2GHz ile 2.7GHz arasında değişen, düşük güç (2mW) tüketimi sağlayan bir LC GKO (VCO) tasarlanmıştır. Faz gürültüsünü minimize etmek maksadıyla 4 bit anahtarlamalı IMOS dizisinden yararlanılmıştır. Ayrıca frekansın ince ayarı için kapasite kuplajlı diyot varaktör devresi eklenmiştir. Bu frekans ayarlama tekniğinin faz gürültüsüne etkisi en kötü hal için 50kHz ofsette yaklaşık olarak 2dBc/Hz olup yüksek ofsetlerde yok denecek kadar azdır. Devrenin kaba kontrol gerilimleri 1.4V ve 0V olup, ince ayar gerilimi ise 0.5V ile 1.4V arasındadır. Besleme geriliminin 1.4V olduğu dikkate alındığında devre yüksek entegrasyon olanağı sunmaktadır. Faz gürültüsü 50kHz ofsette -88.6dBc/Hz ile -94.36dBc/Hz arasında olup 3MHz ofsette ise -128.3dBc/Hz ile -130.5dBc/Hz değerlerine ulaşmaktadır.Bu devreye ek olarak daha düşük gerilimli farklı topolojiler aynı akım akıtacak şekilde tasarlanmış ve tezin aynı zamanda ISM bandında çalışan düşük güç sarfiyatı isteyen uygulamalarda gerekli olacak bir GKO ihtiyacı için karşılaştırmalı bir çalışma olması sağlanmıştır.In this study, a low power LC VCO which operates at a center frequency of 2.45GHz over the range between 2.2GHz and 2.7GHz is designed for Bluetooth applications. The oscillator consumes 2mW at a supply voltage of 1.4V. To minimize the phase noise generated by the varactor through AM-PM conversion, 4bits SCA varactor is implemented by employing IMOS varactors. For fine tuning of frequency, a capacitor coupled diode varactor structure is designed. The effect of this overall varactor structure on the phase noise is around 2dBc/Hz at 50kHz offset for the worst case whereas it is negligble at high offsets. The coarse control tuning voltage values are 0V and 1.4V and the fine tuning control voltage varies from 0.5V to 1.4V. Hence, a high integration is achieved by keeping the external voltage at power supply voltage. The phase noise is between -88.6dBc/Hz and -94.36dBc/Hz at 50kHz offset, and between -128.3dBc/Hz and -130.5dBc/Hz at 3MHz offset. In addition to this, several circuits enabling lower supply voltage are simulated by keeping the same current in order to constitute a comparative study for low power applications which do not require stringent phase noise specification at 2.4GHz.Yüksek LisansM.Sc

Ultra low phase noise 19 GHz VCO design in bipolar technology

The thesis treats a design for an ultra low phase noise VCO for backhaul Gbit point-to-point communication 81-86 GHz. Two VCO-circuits have been designed for a frequency of 19 GHz with a tuning range of more than 10 % and a phase noise below -120 dBc/Hz at an offset frequency of 1 MHz. Both circuits use INFINEON's bipolar SiGe process offering high speed transistors, a high-Q varactor and a thick top metal level. One VCO circuit uses the varactor directly coupled to the integrated inductor requiring a tuning voltage up to 10 V. Although also comparable phase noise commercial products from HITTITE require such unconvenient high tuning voltages. A second version was implemented based on an integrated transformer and operating with a tuning voltage between 0 and 3.3 V. The power consumption of both implemented VCOs is 20 mA from a single 3.3 V supply voltag