Power efficient Ka-band low phase noise VCO in 0.13 μm CMOS

A 27 GHz cross-coupled LC voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) using a standard 0.13 mum CMOS technology is presented. The VCO using a high-Q LC resonator with a micro-strip inductor (mu-strip L) provides a phase noise of -113 dBc/Hz at a 1 MHz offset frequency. The figure - of-merit (FoM) is -194.6 dBc/Hz. To obtain high output power, it also uses a common source amplifier as a buffer and it shows the output power of -3.5 dBm at an oscillation frequency of 26.89 GHz. This is believed to be the lowest phase noise and FoM with the highest output power of a millimetre-wave VCO in CMOS technology.