Influence of back-end architectures on the performance of RF CMOS VCOs

Author

Linten, Dimitri ; Jenei, Snezana ; Carchon, Geert ; Wambacq, Pier ; Soens, Charlotte ; Decoutere, Stefaan ; Donnay, Stéphane ; De Raedt, Walter

Author_Institution

IMEC, Leuven, Belgium

fYear

2003

fDate

23-25 Feb. 2003

Firstpage

150

Lastpage

155

Abstract

Voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs) with low phase noise are one of the most difficult RF building-blocks to integrate on a (Bi)CMOS chip. Their performance is limited by the low quality factors of the integrated inductors. This paper studies the influence of advanced back-end (BEOL) silicon CMOS architectures and on-chip wafer postprocessing on the performance of a 2 GHz VCO. Simulation results show that the on-chip post-processed passives are a competitor to off-chip passives to make RF VCOs.

Keywords

BiCMOS analogue integrated circuits; inductors; integrated circuit noise; phase noise; radiofrequency integrated circuits; radiofrequency interference; voltage-controlled oscillators; 2 GHz; BiCMOS chip; RF CMOS VCOs; advanced back-end silicon; back-end architectures; integrated inductors; on-chip post-processed passives; on-chip wafer postprocessing; phase noise; Aluminum; Artificial intelligence; CMOS technology; Costs; Phase noise; Q factor; Radio frequency; Space technology; Thin film inductors; Voltage-controlled oscillators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Mixed-Signal Design, 2003. Southwest Symposium on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7778-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SSMSD.2003.1190415

Filename

1190415