Low Phase-Noise Quadrature Voltage Controlled Oscillator Design for the 700 MHz LTE Band

In this article we present the design of a quadrature voltage controlled oscillator (QVCO) with low phase noise and low distortion. The circuit is appropriate for implementing frequency conversion stages with differential local oscillator (LO) port. The proposed design has a coarse tuning control for the operating frequency selection and a fine tuning control intended for automatic frequency control (AFC) applications. The circuit, implemented in 130 nm CMOS technology, occupies an area of 242 × 209 μm
²
. Simulations results show that the QVCO can be continuously tuned in the range of 693 MHz to 827 MHz whereas drains a current of 11.45 mA (core) when it is powered from a 2.5 V source.