An area-efficient 5GHz/10GHz dual-mode VCO with coupled helical inductors in 0.13-UM CMOS technology

The helical inductor is a three-dimensional multi-layer inductor with relatively higher quality factor and self-resonance frequency compare with other multi-layer inductors. A new dual-mode coupled-inductor VCO based on helical inductors is proposed, which is able to work on 5GHz and 10GHz band. Because of the helical inductors used, the proposed VCO is much more area-efficient than previous coupled-inductor structure. The simulation results show that the phase noise at 1 MHz offset is −101.6dBc/Hz and −101.3dBc/Hz at the frequency of 4.8GHz and 10.4GHz, respectively. The VCO draws 4mA from 1.2 V supply.