Ultra-low power 2.4 GHz Self Oscillating Mixer using a load-tolerant VCO

This paper presents a 2.4 GHz ultra-low power self-oscillating mixer (SOM) using a load tolerant Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO). It consists of a double balanced switched transconductance mixer stacked on top of a PMOS LC-VCO. In this design the loading effect of the mixer section on the VCO is analyzed, and a load tolerant configuration is proposed. The simulation results of the circuit, implemented in 0.13 $\mu$m CMOS technology, show a conversion gain of 9 dB @ 5MHz with 600 $\mu$ W of power consumption, and a phase noise (PN) of-110.5dBc/Hz@1MHz. The SOM exhibits a single sideband noise Figure of 16 dB.