Low-power voltage-controlled oscillators in 90-nm CMOS using high-quality thin-film postprocessed inductors

• Wafer-level packaging (WLP) technology offers novel opportunities for the realization of high-quality on-chip passives needed in RF front-ends. This paper demonstrates a thin-film WLP technology on top of a 90-nm RF CMOS process with one 15-GHz and two low-power 5-GHz voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) using a high-quality WLP or above-IC inductor. The 5-GHz VCOs have a power consumption of 0.33 mW and a phase noise of - 115 dBc/Hz and -111 dBc/Hz; at 1-MHz offset, respectively, and the 15-GHz VCO has a phase noise of -105 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset with a power consumption of 2.76 mW.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

oscillator (VCO)

voltage-controlled

radio frequency (RF)

inductor

above IC

CMOS

wafer-level packaging (WLP)

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)