Tunable Active Inductor offers integrable and cost-effective alternatives of varactor tuned VCOs

This paper describes the novel TAI (tunable active inductor) configuration that enables reconfigurable voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs) for multi-band and multi-standard wireless applications. To demonstrate reconfigurality, reported TAI VCO simultaneously generates dual frequency bands using surface mounted device (SMD) components, and readily lends itself for fabrication in integrated-circuit form. The measured phase noise for band#1 (2450-2650 MHz) and band#2 (4850-5250 MHz) are typically better than -105 dBc/Hz at 100 kHz offset from the carrier with operating bias of 3 V, 20 mA.