A 2.8-to-5.8 GHz harmonic VCO in a 28 nm UTBB FD-SOI CMOS process

A 2.8-to-5.8GHz VCO designed in a 28nm UTBB FD-SOI CMOS process adopts a reconfigurable active core to save power at the lower oscillation frequencies, and to enable a trade-off between power consumption and phase noise at all frequencies. The UTBB FD-SOI CMOS process is instrumental to achieve a tuning range in excess of one octave at low power consumption, while the use of an 8-shaped tank coil yields a VCO that is highly insensitive to external magnetic fields. The VCO operates from 0.9V and has a figure-of-merit of 186-189 dBc/Hz, depending on the oscillation frequency and the configuration of the oscillator core. The active area of the VCO is 380 μm × 700 μm.