1

A Low Phase Noise VCO for Multi Band

Wireless Transceivers
Shirin Bahramirad*, Jad G. Atallah**, Steffen Albrecht*

* Altran Technologies, The Netherlands, {bahramirad, albrecht}@altran-tech.nl

** Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; atallah@imit.kth.se

The organization of this paper is as follow: in section II

Abstract—this paper presents a CMOS voltage controlled
oscillator for multi standard wireless transceivers. The VCO
structure is based on All- PMOS LC oscillators. The frequency
range extends from 1.7 GHz to 2.5 GH, and tuning between
frequencies is done by means of capacitor banks and varactors.
Index Terms— All-PMOS LC oscillator, differential inductor,
multi standard, phase noise, voltage controlled oscillator.
wireless standards and their frequency specifications, which
are assumed for this work, are described. In addition, different
VCO structures are being discussed and the reasons for the
chosen architecture are argued. The proposed solution for this
application and simulation results are summarized in section
III. A brief conclusion and future work are presented in
section IV.

I. INTRODUCTION II. DESIGN FRAMEWORK

T HE ever increasing use of wireless communication

during recent years has led to the demand for transceivers
to be small in size, consume less power and have low cost in
Among wireless standards, a set of five standards has been
chosen for this work in order to prove the idea, including
GSM, WCDMA, IEEE 802.11b and Bluetooth [2]. The
addition to low phase noise and high performance. Moreover, frequency requirements for uplink/downlink of these
operating in multiple wireless standards is one of the basic standards are summarized in Table I.
requirements for new generation of transceivers, to be able to
serve new standards as well as being compatible with existing Table I. Wireless standards and their frequency ranges
ones. Despite problems caused by low resistivity silicon Mobile Mobile
substrates in RF circuits [1], reasonable power consumption, Standard
Transmit (MHz) Receive (MHz)
low cost and relatively small size for higher data rate in
CMOS technology as well as technology’s capability in E-GSM 900 1760-1830 1850-1920
implementing full system on one chip, make CMOS DCS 1800 1710-1785 1805-1880
technology an interesting choice in radio frequency circuit WCDMA II 1850-1910 1930-1990
design. WCDMA III 1710-1785 1805-1880
One of the key components in a wireless transceiver is its IEEE 802.11b 2412-2472
frequency synthesizer, which besides guaranteeing the Bluetooth 2402-2480
accuracy of frequency; its phase noise, sidebands (spurs) and
lock time will affect the performance of the transceiver. As a Looking at the frequency of these standards, the VCO
result, a high performance frequency synthesizer is required to should be tunable between 1.7 GHz and 2.5 GHz, to cover all
cope with multi standard components. A typical synthesizer the standards. Among all the above standards GSM has the
consists of a phase frequency detector, charge pump, loop most stringent requirement on phase noise, A -121 dBc/Hz at
filter, oscillator and a frequency divider. Among these, the 600 KHz offset from center frequency, makes it the worst case
oscillator is one of the components, which highly affect the requirement for phase noise for this work.
phase noise performance of the PLL. Implementing a multi In the following, various types of oscillators and a
standard voltage controlled oscillator, as a built-in component comparison between their performances are presented. Then
in a frequency synthesizer will ease the necessary the reasons for why choosing All-PMOS LC oscillator will be
requirements for multi standard synthesizer. Hence, the design stated.
and implementation of a fully integrated VCO with high
quality factor components and reasonable phase noise
performance for multi standard receivers are the primary
motivation behind this work.
1-4244-1278-1/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE 148
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A. Ring Oscillator 1 Lω
and are defined as and . In general, the quality
A ring oscillator is basically an odd number of cascaded CωRs Rs
invertors in a feedback loop. Fig. 1 shows a three-stage
differential ring oscillator. factor of capacitors is much higher than that of inductors [3],
hence the resulting parallel resistance of the tank, RP, is
mainly determined by the inductor, RP ≈ RPL.
+ - + - + -

- + - + - +

Rs
Figure 1. Ring oscillator
L C LP Cp Rp
1 Cs
The circuit oscillates with frequency of f osc = , Ls
2Td M
where Td is delay of each stage and M number of stages.
B. Relaxation Oscillator Figure 3. Impedance of LC tank
As presented in fig. 2, the relaxation oscillator, like ring
oscillators, is a resonatorless oscillator. The circuit oscillates Lp ≈ Ls Cp ≈ Cs
simply because of the positive feedback around M1 and M2. RpL ≈ QL2.RsL RpC ≈ QC2. RsC (1)
Vdd For QL» 1 For QC » 1
Based on the above model, the impedance of the tank can
be presented as:
R1 R2 1
Z= (2)
1 1
+ + jω c C P
jωc LP R p
M1 M2 Magnitude and phase of such an oscillator are displayed in
fig. 4. As it is suggested in the figure, there is a significant
filtering characteristic in the LC oscillator, which considerably
Iss Iss reduces the phase noise.

Figure 2. Relaxation oscillator

+90

The major advantage of resonatorless oscillators is the lack

of large passive devices such as inductors and capacitors, f

which makes them small in size and suitable for integration.

-90
However, this is also the main disadvantage of these types of
oscillators since there would be no filtering of noise at output fc f
signal. Therefore, ring oscillators and relaxation oscillators (a)
(b)
show a very poor phase noise performance, and as a result not Figure 4. (a) Magnitude and (b) phase response of an LC tank
suitable for our application. 1
At resonance, ωC LP = and the voltage gain equals
C. LC Oscillators ωC C P
To gain a better phase noise, resonators have been added to +gmRP. It should be noted that for oscillation to start,
feedback network. A very simple resonator is an LC tank. The Barkhausen’s criteria [3] has to be fulfilled.
1 There are different approaches to design an LC oscillator.
oscillator tank resonates at frequency ω c = .
The most common methods are Colpitts oscillator, Hartley
LC
oscillator, and Cross-Coupled oscillator.
In theory, the impedance of the inductor and capacitor are
Colpitts and Hartley, fig 5, use one transistor to provide
equal with opposite signs at resonance frequency,
sufficient gain and phase shift. Frequency of oscillation in
1 1
Ljω c = , making the impedance of the tank equal both topologies is ωc = .
jCω c Leq C eq
to infinity at this frequency. However in practice both inductor
and capacitor suffer from resistive components.
Qc and QL are the quality factors of capacitor and inductor,

149
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Vdd Vdd Vdd

LP C1 Rp L1 Cp Rp M1 M2

Vb M1 C2 Vb M1 L2
C
L
Iss Iss Vo1
Vo2
M1 M2
(a) (b)
Figure 5. (a) Colpitts and (b) Hartley oscillators

Since Colpitts architecture uses only one inductor, and as a Itail

result is smaller and more suitable for integrated circuits, it is
more frequently used than Hartley oscillators. (c)
Small signal analysis of Colpitts oscillator will result in
Figure 6. Cross-Coupled oscillators
following equation for gain (a) NMOS-Only (b) PMOS-Only and (c) Complementary
(C1 + C 2 )2
g m RP = (3) It is presented in [3] that at resonance the total phase shift
C1C 2 around the loop is zero because each stage provides a zero
where gm is the gain from source of M1 and RP loss of the LC frequency dependant phase shift, resulting the following
C1 limitation on gain for oscillation to begin:
tank. The minimum required gain occurs when = 1,
g m1 RP g m 2 RP ≥ 1 → ( g m RP ) ≥ 1
2
C2 (5)
resulting the following expression to fulfill the Barkhausen’s
criteria. To choose between Colpitts oscillator and Cross-Coupled
g m RP ≥ 4 (4) oscillator, it should be noted that Colpitts suffer from two
drawbacks. First with regards to equations (4) and (5) it can
be seen that with identical LC tank the gain has to be 4 times
Another approach to design an LC oscillator is Cross- bigger in Colpitts, resulting either wider transistor size or
Coupled oscillator, fig.6, which is divided to three different larger biasing current and as a result larger power
types, PMOS-Only, NMOS-Only and Complementary Cross- consumption. And secondly, Colpitts oscillators do not
Coupled. provide differential output. It should be mentioned here that
maximum noise rejection is feasible in fully differential
Vdd Vdd oscillator comparing to a single mode oscillator, and the level
of SNR is higher in differential circuit, and as a result the fully
Itail
L1 L2 differential model has been chosen for this project.
C
M1 M2 For this work, an All-PMOS oscillator has been chosen for
Vo1 Vo2 various reasons. Complementary Cross-Coupled has two more
Vo1 Vo2
transistors comparing to PMOS Only, resulting in almost five
M1 M2 times more parasitic capacitance and hence degradation in
C tuning range and introducing more noise sources. In addition,
L1 L2
PMOS transistors have smaller 1/f noise due to lower mobility
Itail
comparing to NMOS transistors, and they have less hot carrier
effect [10]. Therefore PMOS VCO can achieve better phase
(a) (b) noise performance than NMOS VCO. Moreover using PMOS
transistors for current source provides excellent suppression of
power supply noise. In summary PMOS VCO is more
appropriate in terms of phase noise performance.

150

III. DESIGN AND SIMULATION RESULTS
Now that the structure of oscillator has been chosen, the
components should be selected so that the circuit is capable of
oscillating at six different frequency bands in the range of 1.7
GHz to 2.5 GHz. The proposed circuit is presented in fig. 8.
The base frequency is chosen to be 2.5 GHz, so the fix
capacitor and inductor are resonating at this frequency.
However, the total tank capacitance is formed by combination
of the fixed capacitor, capacitors banks, varactors and
parasitic capacitances. Capacitor banks are added to switch
between different frequency bands and varactors are used for
fine-tuning within each frequency. With capacitor C1 added to
LC tank, center frequency changes to fc = 2.34 GHz. Addition
of each capacitor bank from C2 to C5 will result in a change
of center frequency by 160 MHz.
It should be noted that the circuit is fully differential and
must remain symmetrical. For this reason, each level consists
of two capacitors. The values of capacitors are summarized in
Table II.
Table II. The value of switched capacitors
Frequency
2.5 2.34 2.18 2.02 1.86
[GHz]
Capacitor
150 487.9 566.4 659.95 834.03
C1–C5 [fF]
Inductors are the most area-consuming components on the
chip and the overall phase noise of the circuit depends
primarily on the quality factor of the inductors, as the quality
factor in capacitors is much higher than in inductor’s.
Therefore, the resulting parallel resistance of the tank, RP, is
mainly determined by the inductor. It is more desirable to use
a differential inductor instead of two single ended because a
differential inductor will consume almost half the area of two
single ended inductors with considerably higher Q, due to the
reduction in the substrate loss. For this work, a differential
inductor has been designed using Momentum simulator of
Agilent ADS, shown in fig. 7, with value equal to 4.2 nH and
a simulated Q value of 12 at frequency of 2.5 GHz.
Figure 7. Differential Inductor
Varactors are used to tune the frequency inside the selected
band, and connected differentially to the circuit.
4
The overall specifications for the VCO are summarized in
Table III.
Table III. VCO specification
Frequency of Oscillation 1700MHz ~ 2500MHz
Min. Sensitivity (KVCO) 35 MHz/Volt
Control Voltage (Vtune) 1Volt (0.4 ~ 1.4)
-121dBc/Hz at 600 KHz
Phase Noise
Offset
Current consumption 13 mA
The circuit is designed in UMC 0.18μm CMOS process
using Agilent ADS and Cadence. The circuit shown in fig. 8
includes the oscillator core along with biasing circuit, limiter
and output buffers.
The steady state output of the oscillator at 2.5GHz is shown
in fig 8. The output is seen from the RL, Vx and Vy in the
circuit.
Fig. 10 shows phase noise values at center frequency of 2.5
GHz. Phase noise performance of the oscillator for all
1.7
frequency bands at 600 KHz offset frequency are summarized
in Table V. Figure 11 and Table VI represent the frequency
949.8
tuning over the control voltage, and the tuning range, VCO
sensitivity, and KVCO for each frequency band respectively. A
comparison between recently published LC oscillators is
shown in Table IV.
IV. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a 1.8V fully integrated multi standard
low noise oscillator designed in 0.18μm CMOS technology.
The VCO operates between 1.7 GHz and 2.5 GHz by means
of array of switched capacitors. Varactors have been used for
fine-tuning around each frequency of oscillation. The circuit
consumes supply current of 13mA. The oscillator shows phase
noise performance of –127.1/-119.1 dBc/Hz at 600KHz offset
from 1.7 GHz and 2.5 GHz respectively.
Ongoing work by the authors targets VCO operation over
the entire band from 1.7 GHz to 2.5 GHz, covering all
currently existing gaps in the operation range.
REFERENCES
[1] Lawrence E. Larson, “Integrated Circuit Technology Options for RFIC’s
Present Status and Future Directions”, IEEE Journal of Solid State
Circuits, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 387-399, March 1998.
[2] J. G: Atallah, M. Ismail, “A CMOS Frequency Synthesizer for Multi-
Standard Wireless Devices.” Proceedings of the 46th IEEE International
Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, 2003, vol. 3, 27 – 30
Dec. 2003.
[3] Behzad Razavi, RF Microelectronics, Prentice Hall, Inc. 1998.
[4] Jesper Bank, “A Harmonic-Oscillator Design Methodology Based on
Describing Functions,” Doctoral Thesis, Chalmers University of
Technology, Sweden 2006.
[5] Behzad Razavi, “A Study of Phase Noise in CMOS Oscillators,” IEEE
Journal of Solid State Circuits, vol. 31, no. 3, March 1996.
151
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[6] M. Danesh, J. R. Long, “Differentially Driven Symmetric Microstrip

Inductors,” IEEE Transaction on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Table IV. Comparison with recently published VCOs
vol. 50, no. 1, January 2002. [8] [9] [11]
[7] T. H. Lee, “The Design of CMOS Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit”,
Supply 2.6V 1.8V 1.8V
Cambridge University Press, 1998.
[8] Z. Tang, J. He, H. Min, “A Low Phase Noise 1-GHz LC VCO Process 0.25μm 0.18μm 0.18μm
Differentially Tuned by Switched Step Capacitors”, IEEE Asian Solid Frequency 1GHz 2/5.8 GHz 2.97-4.45GHz
State Circuits Conference, 2005. -130 -112/-107
[9] M. Yeh, W. Liou, T. H. Chen, Y. C. Lin, J. Ho, “A Low Power 2/5.8 Phase -124.2 dBc/Hz
dBc/Hz at dBc/HZ at
GHz CMOS LC VCO for Multi band Wireless Communication noise at 1MHz
1MHz 1MHz
Applications”, International Conference on Communication, Circuits Power 9mW 11.7/9.3mW 7mW
and Systems, 2006.
[10] J. Y. Chen, “CMOS Devices and Technology for VLSI”, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990.
[11] B. Q. Diep, C. S. Park, “All PMOS Wideband VCO for Multi band
Multi Standard Radios”, The 9th International Conference on Advanced
Communication Technology, 2007.
V dd

280/0.58
28/0.58 280/0.58 280/0.58
100O

V dd Vdd
100O
280/0.58
1KO V=1.1V 1KO
40/0.18 V=1.1V 95/0.18 95/0.18 40/0.18
1KO
Vx 1KO
Vy
25/0.18
25/0.18
RL=50O
Vdd R L=50O
15O

Vtune 75/0.18
371.17O

C=150fF
75/0.18 75/0.18

C1 C1

C2 C2

C3 C3

C4 C4

C5 C5

L L

Figure 8. Fully differential All-PMOS VCO

Vx
-50

1.2 -70
Output Voltage

Phase Noise

-90
[dBc/Hz]
[V]

1.1
-110

-130
1.0

Vy -150

0.9 -170
100 200 300 400 1k 10k 100k 1M 10M 100M
Time[nsec] Offset
Frequency
[Hz]
Figure 9. Output voltage at 2.5 GHz oscillation frequency Figure 10. Phase noise performance at 2.5 GHz

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Table V. Phase noise analysis of the VCO at each frequency at 600KHz offset
Oscillation
2.5GHz 2.34GHz 2.18GHz 2.02GHz 1.86GHz 1.7GHz
Frequency
Phase Noise
-119.1 -120.7 -122.4 -124.2 -125.8 -127.1
[dBc/Hz]

Frequency of Oscillation @output

2,6

2,4

2,2
Freq [GHz]

1,8

1,6
0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1,0 1,1 1,2 1,3 1,4 1,5 1,6
Vtune [Volts]

Figure 11. Fine-tuning with varactors

Table VI. The tuning range and VCO sensitivity in each frequency band
fosc [GHz]
2.5 2.34 2.18 2.02 1.86 1.7
Vtune [V]
0.4 2.432 2.285 2.131 1.986 1.829 1.686
0.5 2.446 2.295 2.143 1.995 1.836 1.692
0.6 2.463 2.303 2.155 2.002 1.843 1.697
0.7 2.474 2.336 2.163 2.01 1.849 1.702
0.8 2.487 2.34 2.174 2.017 1.855 1.706
0.9 2.501 2.34 2.18 2.024 1.86 1.71
1.0 2.514 2.351 2.19 2.03 1.865 1.714
1.1 2.525 2.364 2.194 2.035 1.868 1.717
1.2 2.534 2.369 2.202 2.039 1.871 1.721
1.3 2.541 2.373 2.206 2.043 1.874 1.721
1.4 2.548 2.379 2.212 2.047 1.877 1.723
KVCO
[MHz/V]
116 94 81 61 48 37

153