A simplified method for phase noise calculation

A new phase noise calculation method is proposed in which noise sources are modeled with single tone sources. It uses a nonlinear frequency-domain analysis to calculate total gain from noise sources to the output phase noise. This single tone (ST) simulation directly calculates noise frequency contributions and is much faster than Hajimiri's impulse sensitivity function (ISF) method. A quadrature VCO has been implemented in TSMC 0.18-mum CMOS and the predicted phase noise matches measurement.