A CMOS Voltage Controlled Oscillator and Frequency Tripler for 22 – 27 GHz Local Oscillator Generation

This letter presents a CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and frequency tripler integration for 22-27 GHz local oscillator (LO) generation. An 8 GHz wideband VCO provides the fundamental and second harmonic signals which are directly fed into the frequency tripler for frequency mixing. The tripler generates an output frequency in the range of 22-27 GHz. This integration is implemented and fabricated using a 0.18 μm CMOS process. The total chip area is 0.66 mm². The measured frequency tuning range (FTR) of the VCO increases from 7.28 to 9.11 GHz as the tuning voltage increases from 0 to 1.8 V. The output frequency range of the tripler covers a wide band of 5.5 GHz (22.4%) ranging from 21.83 to 27.33 GHz. Overall, the core circuits of this integration consume 11.1 mW. At a frequency offset of 1 MHz from the centre frequency, the measured phase noises of the VCO and frequency tripler are -112 dBc/Hz and -101 dBc/Hz , respectively. The calculated figure of merit with frequency tuning range FOM_T is -185.4 dBc/Hz.