gm-Boosted VCO with low power consumption and large tuning range

A voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) in a rather new topology is presented. The architecture is based on the classical Colpitts oscillator in common-gate configuration. In order to achieve a higher effective transconductance the gate is not biased with a DC voltage. Instead the biasing voltage has a phase shift of 180deg to the signal at the LC-tank. The design goals have been a wide tuning range and a low power consumption with at the same time the least possible phase noise.