Low-phase noise Class-C VCO with dynamic body bias

A 2.5 GHz Class-C voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with dynamic back-gate-biased MOSFET is proposed. A dynamic gate biasing circuit is used to reduce power consumption by switching N-type MOS from initial Class-AB to Class-C operation in steady state. Moreover, the VCO uses dynamic back-gate bias to reduce threshold voltage of switching MOSFET during the start-up oscillation. The Class-C differential VCO is implemented in TSMC 0.18 mu m bipolarcomplementary- metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) process. The measured phase noise is -124.8 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency from 2.48 GHz carrier while consuming 2.64 mW power from a 0.8 V supply. Tuning range of VCO is 0.72 GHz, from 2.48 to 3.3 GHz, whereas the control voltage was tuned from 0 to 2 V. The VCO occupies a chip area of 446 x 840 mu m2 and provides a figure of merit of -197.55 dBc/Hz.