An extremely miniaturized 15‐GHz CMOS distributed voltage‐controlled oscillator

A distributed voltage‐controlled oscillator (DVCO) employing novel multilayered inductors is implemented in a standard 0.18‐μm CMOS process. The DVCO is at least 90% smaller than the earlier reported DVCOs and its core occupies a mere 348 μm × 195 μm or 0.06 mm 2 , making it the smallest distributed VCO reported in any monolithic technology to date. The VCO employs a four‐stage unstable distributed amplifier and generates a fundamental signal at 14.9 GHz with a phase noise of −100.2 dBc/Hz @ 1 MHz offset and a 12% tuning range. The circuit consumes 34 mW of DC power and provides −0.8 dBm of output power. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 51: 1953–1955, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.24504