Analysis and Design of Low Phase Noise LC Oscillator for Sub-mW PLL-Free Biomedical Receivers

This work presents the design of a low phase noise LC oscillator (LCO) for a phase locked loop (PLL)-free receiver (RX), which is used for wireless sensor nodes based healthcare applications. A detailed analysis of phase noise of free running LCO has been presented under the influence of off-chip components, which are very often inevitable in biomedical radios. Based on the analysis, a low power cross coupled LCO has been optimally designed for Medical Device Radiocommunication (MedRadio) band, which is a recommended communication band for biomedical applications. The proposed LCO has been fabricated in 180 nm CMOS technology. Measurement results show that the LCO consumes 140 micr-watt power from 1.8 V supply and exhibits a phase noise of -103 dBc/Hz at an offset of 300 kHz, which closely matches with the post layout simulation results. Measurement results also show that the proposed LCO results in significant power reduction in the PLL-free RX while achieving less than 10^-4 BER at a data rate of 200 kb/s, which is good enough for various biosignal communication.