A Low-Power CMOS VCO for 2.4GHz WLAN

In this paper, a 2.4-GHz low-power LC VCO with high performance in phase noise is designed and implemented in 0.18um CMOS process for IEEE 802. llg WLAN. Based on measurement results, it has the phase noise of -121.11dBc/Hz @lMHz offset from a 2.4GHz carrier. The total power dissipation is only 0.675 mW at 1.2-V power supply voltage. The oscillator is tuned from 2.28 GHz to 2.47 GHz while a tuning voltage varies from 0 V to 1.8 V. Within the author's knowledge, this VCO has the lowest phase noise among the VCOs which consume less-than-1 mW power.