Voltage-Follower Coupling Quadrature Oscillator with Embedded Phase-Interpolator in 16nm FinFET

High-speed serial links require a very high frequency clock source. Multi-rings oscillator is a practical solution to this challenge. A new phase-interpolator embedded quadrature oscillator was designed and tested. Voltage-follower based cross-coupling loops create reliable and tunable phase relationship among OSC rings. The measurement results show that the proposed PI-OSC provides 1.25/0.97 LSB INL/DNL performance at 24GHz while consuming only 8.1mW power. This compact oscillator is suitable for clock generation in high-speed low-power links.