A Low Noise Self-Mixing-VCO Based on Coupled Class-F2 Oscillators

This paper presents a low noise self-mixing voltage-controlled oscillator. The proposed VCO consists of coupled fundamental oscillators and two self-mixing triplers. In order to reduce the flicker noise and improve the phase noise (PN) performance, a Class-F
₂
technique is adopted in the proposed fundamental oscillator design. Meanwhile, the PN is further reduced by 3 dB with the use of a coupling technology. In addition, by using the transformer-based tank, the self-mixing tripler can operate from 22.2 to 26.4 GHz with sufficient output power. The proposed VCO is designed and simulated utilizing 65 nm CMOS process. The post-layout simulation shows the PN is -113.6 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from 24.28 GHz, and the Figure of merit (FOM) is about 187.5 dBc/Hz while consuming 23.7 mW from a 1-V supply.