A Low Supply Voltage VCO Implemented by a Single Common-Source 90 nm CMOS Transistor

A novel voltage controlled oscillation (VCO) topology using 90-m CMOS technology is demonstrated. The common-source PMOS single transistor integrated with an inductor leads to negative resistance for the VCO that minimizes the transistor size and decreases the flicker noise sources. To our knowledge, the topology of the core VCO is the most compact configuration ever reported. The fabricated VCO consumes 6.26mW with a supply voltage of 1 V and has a 1.68times1.41 mm² chip area, including the ESD protection circuit. At 1.77 GHz, PMOS VCO features an output power in the range of -5.2 dBm, and exhibits a phase noise of -94 dBc/Hz at the offset frequency of 300 kHz and -107 dBc/Hz at 1MHz