A low power, eight-phase LC-ring oscillator for clock and data recovery application

A four stage LC-ring oscillator is presented. Eight different phases are generated in which there in 45 degrees phase difference between consecutive outputs and direction of phases is defined. Nmos capacitors in parallel with constant capacitors are used for coupling between stages. The control voltage is applied to Pmos varactors to adjust the oscillation frequency. The advantages of this structure are the rather small inductors size, low power consumption, and tuning curve linearity. The proposed structure is simulated in 0.18um CMOS technology. Power consumption for each stage is 4.8mW from a 1.8B supply. The proposed VCO has a phase noise of −121dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset from the center frequency of 5GHz and its gain is 380MHz/V.