A new 6 GHz fully integrated low power low phase noise CMOS LC quadrature VCO

A new fully integrated low power and low phase noise 6 GHz quadrature VCO is designed and fabricated in standard commercial 0.18 mum single-poly, 6-metal CMOS process. The one VCO-core draws only 1.6mA of current from a 1.8V supply. Total power consumption include two VCO-cores and two WO-buffers - for generating quadrature signal is 18mW. Measured phase noise at 1 MHz offset from the center frequency is -115 dBc/Hz. It has tuning range of 1.2 GHz with low phase noise performance throughout the tuning range. It meets the requirements for IEEE802.11a and HiperLAN type 2 standards. Low power and low phase noise have been achieved simultaneously by the use of new proposed cascode coupling topology.