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A low power 2.4-GHz current reuse VCO for low power miniaturized
transceiver system

Conference Paper · November 2012

DOI: 10.1109/ICEDSA.2012.6507804

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 2012 IEEE International Conference on Electronics Design, Systems and Applications (ICEDSA)

A Low Power 2.4-GHz Current Reuse VCO for Low

Power Miniaturized Transceiver System

M. R. Basar, F. Malek Khairudi M. Juni, M. I. M. Saleh, M. Shaharom Idris

School of Computer and Communication Engineering Electrical Engineering
University Malaysia Perlis Politeknik Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin
01000 Kangar Perlis, Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— The explosive growth of short range wireless [11] but the power consumption still remain 10.8 mW. On the
communication systems has lead to highly demand of compact other hand, in order to reduce the power consumption the
radio frequency (RF) circuit with low power design. As voltage staking VCO and tripler with current reuse technique is used
control oscillator (VCO) is the core block of RF systems, this in [13] and reached the power consumption 9 mW as well as
paper presents a low power and highly miniaturized current
the wide frequency tuning range from 7.06 to 8.33 GHz.
reuse 2.45 GHz VCO. The proposed VCO is designed with the
staking switch two series transistors using current reuse topology Therefore, the goal of this work is designing a VCO with
and inversion-mode of PMOS varactor tank. The proposed VCO optimum power consumption, spectral purity, and increasing
consists a single on chip inductor and four MOS transistors that the simplicity by reducing the number of circuit components
simplifies the VCO circuit and shrink the chip area remarkably. for a low power short range miniaturized RF transceiver
The proposed VCO is designed with 0.18-µm CMOS process. system.
At 1.2 V DC supply, the proposed VCO draws only 315 µA The remaining part of this paper is organized as Section II
current resulted to the VCO operate at ultra low power presents the VCO topologies. Section III describes the
(0.38 mW). Over the tuning range the proposed VCO has designing technique of our proposed VCO, in order to achieve
the phase noise of -127 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset.In order to circuit simplicity, low power, and low phase noise
eliminate additional matching voltage circuit, the tuning voltage performance. The simulated result is arranged in Section IV.
(Vtune) is kept similar to the DC voltage supply for 2.45 GHz Finally the proposed VCO is summarized in Section V.
ISM band applications. The performance of the proposed VCO
show the excellent optimization for low power of compact II. OSCILLATOR TOPOLOGY
transceiver system.
An oscillator can be considered as an interconnection of
Keywords- current reuse topology; CMOS; low power; PMOS two single port networks. The one single port network is a
varactor; voltage control oscillator (VCO). frequency selective tank for oscillation and another is negative
resistance/active network for compensation of losses associate
in tank network (figure 1).
I. INTRODUCTION
The short range wireless communications in the area of
wireless sensor network, medical implant device and so on are
rapidly increasing [1,2]. In this area, the more and more C L R -R
optimized (in terms of low power, low cost, and small size)
radio frequency (RF) transceiver system is ever pushing
demand. Recently, this demand has been paying much
attention in the research work to more optimize the RF
transceiver system. Depending on the application, most of the tank active
cases the betterment of the power and size is very critical issue Figure 1. Analogy of LC tank VCO
in different blocks. Reducing the power of VCO, the key
building block of transceiver, here by the main issue. If the pulse current i(t)=Ipulse δ(t) is applied to the tank
Designing of VCO is trade-offs among the several vital circuit, the time domain response can be represented by using
parameters such as power consumption, phase noise, and chip (1).
−t
area [3], [5-7]. In the open literature a lot of VCO was
reported where the current reuse and other techniques are I pulse e 2 RC ⎛ ⎛ 1 1 ⎞ ⎞
vout (t ) ≈ ⎜ ⎜ − 2 2 ⎟.t ⎟ (1)
used. A low power CMOS current reuse VCO is reported in C ⎜ ⎝ LC 4 R C ⎠ ⎟
[4] which consumes 3.96mW DC power including buffer. ⎝ ⎠
Using Flip Chip technology results the better spectral purity in

978-1-4673-2163-1/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 230

 2012 IEEE International Conference on Electronics Design, Systems and Applications (ICEDSA)

From this equation it is easy to see that the response of the resistance of the cross coupled pairs can be express by using
system is sinusoidal and amplitude decay inversely (3).
proportional to the tank capacitance. When, R >> (L / C ) R=−
2
(3)
the frequency of the sinusoidal output can be denoted by using GMN + GMP
(2). Therefore, to keep continuous oscillation with constant
amplitude, energy is added to the tank network by the negative Where the GMN and GMP are the transconductance of NMOS
resistance. and PMOS transistor respectively.
1 Vdd
ωosc = (2)
LC
Among the several different topologies for the
compensation of tank loss in oscillator, the cross couple
differential or –Gm LC VCO topology is the common choice M1 M2
for radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) in order to get
better spectral purity and frequency stability. The spectral Vtune
purity/phase noise is very important parameter in oscillator Cvar Cvar
performance that mostly depends upon the quality factor (QF)
of the tank circuit that used in oscillator. Hence the perfect Vout- Vout+
designing of tank circuit results the better phase noise
performance of VCO. It is vary usual that the C of the LC tank L
VCO is implemented by the varactor and the part of the C
value is varied by the control voltage. The series resistance of
varactor has an imperious effect on overall tank quality factor. M5 M6
In this regard, the diode varactor can enable voltage dependent
frequency variation but in terms of tank QF, the MOS varactor
is better for its lower gate resistance that result superior tank
QF.
In the MOS varactor topology the MOS form a parallel Figure 2. Typical –Gm LC VCO with varactor tank
plate capacitor with the gate as one plate and connected drain,
source and bulk form another plate for the both cases The proposed current reusing VCO is shown in figure 3.
inversion-mode MOS (I-MOS) and accumulation-mode MOS This topology uses NMOS and PMOS switching transistor in
(A-MOS) [3]. The C value of this structure is a nonlinear series like stacking opposite side of the tank circuit. The MOS
function of VBG. In the I-MOS, the MOS is operated under the switching transistors are cross connected to each other and
condition VBG > VT and the value of C is maximum when generate the sufficient negative resistance which also
eliminates one of the cross connected MOS pairs from the
VBG >> VT the maximum value of C of each MOS is nearly
conventional topology (figure 2). The PMOS and NMOS
Cox=εox(W x L)/tox . Where εox is the dielectric constant of transistor stack switch model is shown in figure 4. During the
silicon dioxide, W is the gate width, L is the gate length, and positive half cycle of the output, both switch S1 (PMOS) and
tox is the thickness of oxide. S2 (NMOS) are closed (figure 4a). During this period, current
On the other hand the proper setting of Gm value of flow through the tank from a DC supply to ground that charge
switching cross couple NMOS or/and PMOS transistor the tank up to the equivalent capacitance of MOS varactor.
according to the tank impedance let the circuit oscillate. The During the next half cycle, the MOS switches are closed
modified version of cross couple differential VCO is a current (figure 4b) and tank discharge in this period. Surprisingly, this
reusing technique that is used in this work. In this system the topology draws the current from DC supply only for one half
one half cycle’s current is reused in another half cycle in cycle of its oscillation. For another half cycle it reuses the tank
output that reduces the power consumption of VCO to half of discharge current and continue the output signal. This
typical cross couple differential model. In the next section the technique reduces the power consumption of the oscillator to
current reuse topology has been discussed in details. the nearly half of the power consumption of the conventional
oscillator with the same VCO specification. Both of the
III. CURRENT REUSE VCO DESIGN
transistors operate at triode region and switch at the same time
The conventional differential –Gm LC VCO is the still that allows the smooth voltage swing, controlled by the supply
widely used oscillator in RFIC. Figure 2 shows the topology voltage.
of the conventional oscillator with varactor tank and both In regard of phase noise degradation, the PMOS transistor
PMOS and NMOS cross coupled pairs as the load (M1 and is always preferable due to having the lower 1/f noise than the
M2) and driver (M5 and M6) respectively. The same current NMOS transistor [5]. On the other hand, among the different
flows through the load and driving devices and yield negative choice of varactor, PMOS varactor is preferred to be
resistance to compensate the tank lose. The total negative implemented in VCO resonator in order to achieve lower phase

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 2012 IEEE International Conference on Electronics Design, Systems and Applications (ICEDSA)

noise [6]. The tank circuit is optimized with 2.4 nH inductor IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
and the PMOS (PM2 and PM3) varactor with MOS size 20 µm As shown in figure 3, the proposed VCO is simulated in
in width and 12 µm in length to make sure the oscillation at advance designing system (ADS) with TSMC 0.18 µm
the frequency around 2.45 GHz and the best spectral purity. technology. The proposed VCO draws only 315µA average
The current in the tank circuit is controlled by the PM1 and current from 1.2 V DC source which result the VCO operate at
NM1 staking switch which affect the tank performance and the power as low as 0.38 mW. This low power consumption
amplitude of the output voltage. The 20/0.18 µm PM1 and makes the VCO quite significant for low power RF systems.
27/0.18 µm NM1 can ensure the optimum current flow from a The MOS varactor capacitance, over the tuning voltage is
1.2 V DC supply. shown in figure 5 which slightly changed to upward due to the
Vdd
gate voltage variation when connected in VCO. The used MOS
varactor allow to tune the voltage from 0.7 V to 1.5 V that
result the frequency tuning from 3 GHz to 2.3 GHz. This
tuning has significant influence on startup transient phase of
oscillator that could affect the high speed on-off keying (OOK)
PM1
system. At the tuning voltage 1.2 V the oscillator takes 10 ns
20/0.18
time to reach the steady state oscillation. The tank circuit is
optimized for the 2.45 GHz ISM band at the tuning voltage 1.2
Vout+ V as same with the Vdd that exclude the additional tuning
circuit at 2.45 GHz operation. Figure 6 shows the design reach
the 2.45 GHz at the tuning voltage 1.2 V excellently. The
20/12
PM2 single ended output waveform and the phase noise are shown
in figure 7 and figure 8 respectively. The phase noise -127
L dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset proof the design is highly compatible
Vtune 2.4nH for high speed system. All the simulation results show the well
PM3 optimized performance of our proposed VCO for low power
20/12 operation.
Vout- 1.400p

1.200p
NM1
1.000p
27/0.18
800.0f

600.0f

Figure 3. Proposed current reuse VCO with PMOS varactor tank 400.0f

200.0f

0.0000
Vdd Vdd -1.0 -0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0

S1(closed) S1(open) Vtune (V)

Vout+ Vout+ Figure 5. Capacitance variation with Vtune of inversion mode PMOS varactor

m1
C L C L 0
m1
freq= 2.450GHz
vs(Spectrum,freq)=-3.725
-50
Vout- Vout-
dBm

S2(closed) S2(open)
-100

-150
(a) (b)
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Figure 4. Operation of proposed VCO during (a) positive half, and (b) Freqency (GHz)
negative half cycle of output.
Figure 6. Frequency spectrum at Vtune=1.2 V

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 2012 IEEE International Conference on Electronics Design, Systems and Applications (ICEDSA)

800 system power and size. The manipulated stacking switch

Vout+ Vout-
series transistor of this VCO draws only 315 µA current from
600
1.2V DC source that result the VCO operate at 0.38 mW
power.

400
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
V

The authors are grateful to the Ministry of Higher

200 Education, Malaysia, for the financial support of this research
work under the grant FRGS/FASA/TAHUN /SKK/JPP/03/6
0
via Politeknik Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
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