88-96 GHz VCO with Inductance-Compensated Capacitive Source Degeneration in 90-nm CMOS

A 94-GHz voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) using inductance-compensated capacitive source degeneration (IC-CSD) technique to widen the tuning range is presented. This work has been implemented in 90-nm CMOS technology with a chip area of 0.257 mm². The measured output frequency of the VCO covers a range of 7.99 GHz from 87.99 to 95.98 GHz (8.7% tuning range) and delivers +5.2-dBm maximum output power at 94 GHz. At 94 GHz, the measured phase noises at 1-MHz and 10-MHz frequency offsets are -71.72 and -96.51 dBc/Hz, respectively. The total power dissipation is 85.08 mW while the VCO core and the drive amplifier draw 30.36 mW and 54.72 mW from 1.2-V and 2.4-V power supplies, respectively.