Tutorial: Integrated LC Oscillators

This tutorial will go through the fundamentals of LC oscillator and LC VCO design, such as basic phase-noise theory, design for low power, low phase noise and, large tuning range (including varactor choice). It will also include other key issues such as supply pushing, LDO-VCO co-design, routing/buffering the oscillator signals in large SoCs, and PLL-VCO co-design for fully integratable frequency synthesis. The goal it to give a thorough overview that will be easy to follow yet comprehensive and in touch with the latest significant research results (e.g. DCOs with extremely fine tuning steps for use in DPLLs) of one of the truly key blocks in today's and tomorrow's radios.