A 16-GHz CMOS differential Colpitts VCO for DS-UWB and 60-GHz direct-conversion receiver applications.

A 16-GHz CMOS differential Colpitts VCO fabricated with the 0.18 μm 1P6M process is presented. The 16-GHz VCO is a good choice for the local oscillator (LO) circuit of the UWB or 60-GHz WPAN direct conversion receiver. The VCO is composed of a PMOS transistor-pair core circuit and two source follower output buffers. The VCO can operate at 16.5 GHz, and the measured phase noise at 1-MHz offset is -115 dBc/Hz. The power consumption of the VCO core is 12.6 mW. Compared with previous reported works, this VCO has an output power of -0.9 dBm and about 800-mV output peak-to-peak voltage swing of the VCO core at 16.5 GHz. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 2489–2492, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI 10.1002/mop.22742 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]