Design of a 24-30GHz Wide Tuning-Range VCO for 5G Millimeter Wave Communication

A 24.09-29.85GHz wide tuning range VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) for 5G (Fifth Generation) millimeter wave communication transceiver is presented. Novel configurable varactor bias voltage method and 4-bit capacitor arrays are comprised to achieve wide tuning range and high-frequency overlap. For improving the VCO performance self-designed high Q inductor is adopted. The VCO has been implemented in SMIC 55nm RF CMOS process, achieving a tuning range between 24.09GHz and 29.85GHz, which consumes 16.8mA from a 1.2V power supply on average. The phase noise is −100dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset and −122.3dBc/Hz at 10MHz offset.