Design of a 60-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator in 65nm CMOS

A novel circuit topology for 60GHz Voltage-Controlled Oscillator is developed in this project. It covers the full unlicensed 57~66GHz frequency band and supports multi-band operation. The circuit employs a novel Tunable Differential Inductor, which is constructed by a differential stack transformer and varactors, along with the Switched-Capacitor Tuning technique to enlarge the tuning range. The Tunable Differential Inductor technique helps to increase the tuning range by isolating the varactor from the parasitic capacitances of the transistors and interconnects. It also reduces the phase noise due to varactor AM-FM conversion by isolating the varactor’s bias voltage from low-frequency noise related to the bias current. Simulated in UMC 1P9M 65nm CMOS technology, a tuning range of 14% has been achieved with a low power consumption of 15.5mW under a 1V supply while maintaining a low phase noise performance of -107dBc/Hz at10MHz offset. The VCO core only occupies an area of 60×80μm2, which is the smallest for 60-GHz applications published ever.Bachelor of Engineerin