A low power, wide linear-range CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator

A low power CMOS voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is presented. Its simple and symmetric structure can provide low-power and low-noise operation, which is comparable to existing architectures in CMOS. The proposed VCO is digitally programmable to have different center frequencies while maintaining its linear voltage-to-frequency characteristic and a desirable VCO gain at tuned frequency. Simulation result shows that the output frequency of 1 GHz is achieved at the power consumption of 3.5 mW.