A 6.0 GHZ ICCO (INDUCTOR-LESS CURRENT CONTROLLED OSCILLATOR) WITH LOW PHASE NOISE

This article presents a novel design of 5-stage ICCO (Inductor-less Current Controlled Ring Oscillator). Simulation was carried out using 180nm CMOS Technology from Silterra. The results of the simulation are quite remarkable where a peak frequency of 6.0 GHz along with a low phase noise of -115.67 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset was achieved. The tuning range of this design was at 2.89 GHz, with lowest frequency of 2.11 GHz. This design employs CMOS cross coupled delay cells. The key ingredient in this design was the usage of active inductor (thus inductor-less) and current source circuit to help in improving the switching speed and the noise parameters.