The Centre for Integrated Circuit & Systems at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has successfully designed and manufactured a 10GHz voltage control oscillator (VCO) on Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing’s 0.18micron RF CMOS semiconductor process.

The Centre for Integrated Circuit & Systems at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has successfully designed and manufactured a 10GHz voltage control oscillator (VCO) on Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing's 0.18micron RF CMOS semiconductor process.

Most 10GHz VCO circuits commercially available today are manufactured using more costly silicon germanium processes. High-speed, high-performance VCOs are integral RF components used in rapid data transmission by wireless and optical communications networks such as synchronous optical network (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) applications.

The VCO designed by NTU is claimed as the first to adopt a complementary cross-coupled structure for high-frequency low-phase noise oscillators. NTU's designers were able to overcome the battle between signal speed and noise partly through the high-performance, low-noise and low-power consumption capabilities of Chartered's RF CMOS manufacturing platform.

The designers optimised four critical parameters to achieve the 10GHz frequency and a wide tuning range of 1.1GHz. The power consumption of the core VCO is only 5.8mW and 22.6mW with buffer. The circuit demonstrates low phase noise of -91dBc/Hz at 100kHz-offset frequency.

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