A low-noise voltage-controlled ring oscillator in 28-nm FDSOI technology

Abstract

This paper presents a 1V low phase noise ring based voltage-controlled-oscillator (VCO) for ultra-wide band (UWB) applications. The circuit is implemented in a 28-nm FDSOI technology. The VCO delay cell structure is characterized by a 3.75 mW power consumption and benefits from a new voltage control through the transistor body bias in order to achieve high performance with a wide tuning range. In the frequency range from 29 to 49 GHz, the lowest phase noise result is −132 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz frequency offset while operating at 49 GHz. These measurements lead to an excellent Figure of Merit (FoM) of −220 dBc/Hz.