A U-band VCO in 65nm CMOS with 0.44dBm output power

Abstract

A high output power VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) in U-band is implemented using 65nm CMOS process. The proposed VCO uses MTM(meta-material) technique with transmission line to increase output voltage swing and overcome the limitation of the CMOS technologies. Two varactor banks widen frequency tuning range upto 5%. The VCO operates at 51.55∼54.18GHz and the measured phase noise is -100.67dBc/Hz at 10MHz offset. The chip area is 0.16×0.16mm2 and the output power is 0.44dBm. The power consumption is 33.6mW with 1.2V supply voltage. The measured FOM<inf>P</inf> is -181dBc/Hz. © 2014 IEEE.