Gm-Boosting Colpitts VCO Chip Design for 5.8 GHz WiMAX Applications

This project using TSMC 0.18um CMOS 1P6M process implements a voltage control oscillator (VCO) applying in WiMAX systems. The oscillator adopts Colpitts architecture which has better phase noise performance than NMOS cross-coupled or complementary cross-coupled oscillator, also the oscillator uses g(m) boosting techniques which design circuits in a small current and power consumption. Measurement results of the proposed VCO exhibit tuning range of 5.29 similar to 6.07 GHz, phase noise of -123.4 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset and output power of -6.67 dBm at 5.73 GHz under the supply voltage of 1 V. The power consumption of the core circuit is 4.7 mW, and the chip area including PADs is 0.61 x 0.66 mm(2).