A 2.7 GHz Low-Phase-Noise LC-QVCO Using the Gate-Modulated Coupling Technique

In this paper, a 2.7 GHz LC-tank quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (QVCO) is proposed for achieving low phase noise. The excellent phase noise performance is accomplished by the integration of the gate-modulated quadrature phase coupling technique into a complementary oscillator topology. Simulation results show a wide tuning range from 2.6 to 4.4 GHz, a phase noise of -125 dBc/Hz at an offset of 1 MHz, and a phase-noise figure-of-merit of -184.5 dBc/Hz, while consuming 5.48 mA for the core QVCO from a 1.5 V supply. The proposed QVCO was designed using a 0.18 mu m CMOS process.