2 Majd2018
2 Majd2018
2 Majd2018
Abstract—This paper presents a new low power and low phase- transistors are placed in parallel with the switching pairs. The
noise quadrature voltage controlled oscillator (QVCO). The extra elements for coupling in PQVCO results in higher power
proposed QVCO contains two cross-connected LC-VCOs with consumption and phase noise degradation [4,5].
Darlington cell. Using Darlington cells increases the Using current-reused technique can reduce the power
transconductance of the cross-connected pair and facilitates the
consumption [6]. As shown in Fig. 1 the NMOS cross-
startup of oscillation with lower power consumption. Oscillators
are coupled to each other via the substrates of the Darlington cell's connected pair shares the same bias current with PMOS pair
transistors. No extra noisy elements are used for coupling the core that is tied to it [7]. Therefore, this structure dissipates lower
oscillators and consequently low phase noise quadrature signals DC power by reusing the DC current drawn from the supply
can be generated. The suggested topology was designed and voltage. Due to use of two cross-connected pairs, this structure
simulated in TSMC 180nm CMOS process. The simulation results introduces higher transconductance (Gm) at a given current.
show that the proposed QVCO phase noise is -122.4 dBc/Hz at However, the current-reused structure decreases the power
1MHz offset from 5.37 GHz operation frequency. The total power dissipation but the voltage headroom is limited by stacking of
consumption of the QVCO is 6.1 mW at 1.8 V supply voltage and transistors [4].The modified configuration of current-reused
the tuning range of this topology is 5.3-6.2 GHz.
QVCO has been presented in [8]. Unlike the VCO in [6], in this
Keywords: QVCO; Darlington cell; low power; high circuit both NMOS and PMOS transistor are on and off at the
transconductance. same time such that the overall current drawn from the supply
voltage is reduced [9]. According to [8], while this structure
I. INTRODUCTION does not suffer from the phase noise degradation caused by
QVCOs have played prominent role in recent modern second harmonics ,but it has imbalanced differential outputs [9].
communication systems. They have been utilized in different Many other structures [10, 11] are presented to decrease the
range of applications, such as zero-IF receivers, image rejection power by increasing the negative transconductance (-Gm).
architectures, clock and data recovery (CDR), and QPSK Another important point for improving the performance of a
modulators. QVCO is design of efficient coupling network. The noiseless
Due to development of communication systems, QVCOs coupling network can decrease the phase noise of the circuit and
with low-phase noise, low power, high accuracy and high introduce no excess power consumption to the QVCO Using
substrates of MOS transistors is one of the main approach for
integration are required. For generating quadrature signals,
several methods have been proposed so far, like generating
quadrature signals with poly phase RC-CR filters [1]. Although
the advantage of this method is its simplicity, it suffers from
high noise and low accuracy [1].The other techniques like
master–slave flip–flops and ring oscillators are not appropriate
for using in high frequencies because of high phase noise and
high power dissipation [2]. An appropriate technique, which
has drawn lots of attention, is LC QVCOs. The LC QVCOs
have a better phase noise performance in high frequency bands
compared to the other structures. Generally, the LC-QVCOs are
comprised of two cores LC-VCOs and a coupling network.
Rofougaran [3] presented the first structure of two coupled
LC VCOs for generating quadrature signals. It was named
parallel coupled QVCO (P-QVCO) since the coupling
Fig. 1: The current reused topology
v gs 2 can be defined in terms of v gs1 by (2): transconductance can be increased by properly sizing of M1 and
M2. For this simulation the length of transistors are same. Fig.
( g m1 + sc gs1 ) 4 also shows the comparison between Gm of the Darlington cell
v gs 2 = .v gs1 (2)
gm 3 + s (c gs1 + c gs 3 ) and that of conventional cross-connected pair for different bias
current. It could be figured out that at the same bias current, the
Darlington cell has a higher transconductance than the
and the input voltage vi can be written as (3):
conventional cross-connected cell. So using Darlington cell as
negative Gm in LC QVCOs can facilitate the oscillation at lower
vi = v gs1 + v gs 2 (3) power consumption.
ios
Gm = (4)
vi
g m1 g m 2 + g m1 g m3 + s[ g m1 (c gs 2 + c gs 3 ) + g m 2 c gs1 ]
=
g m1 + g m3 + s (c gs1 + c gs 2 +c gs 3 )
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26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)
gm Rp >1 (5)
−( g m 1 + g m 3 )
Z in ≈ (6) Fig. 6: Comparison between the start-up current
( g m 1g m 2 + g m 1g m 3 )
By assuming g m 1 = g m 3 , Z in can be simplified as: The KCL for the node specified as the Q- can be written as
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26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)
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26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)
f
FOM = PN (Δf ) − 20Log ( osc ) + 10Log ( pQVCO ) (21)
Δf
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26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)
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