A 16-GHz 0.18μm CMOS differential colpitts VCO with a moderate output power for DS-UWB and 60-GHz applications

A 16-GHz CMOS differential Colpitts VCO fabricated with the 0.18 mum 1P6M process is presented. This VCO is composed of a PMOS transistor-pair core circuit and two source follower output buffers. The VCO can operate at 16.5 GHz, and the measured phase noise at 1-MHz offset is -115 dBc/Hz. The power consumption of the VCO core is 12.6 mW. Compared with previous reported works, this VCO has a much higher output power of -0.9 dBm at 16.5 GHz.