A Low-Voltage Low-Power LC Oscillator Using the Diode-Connected SymFET

In this paper, a low-voltage low-power LC-tank oscillator design using the symmetric graphene tunneling field-effect transistor (SymFET) diode is presented. The SymFET takes advantage of the resonant current tunneling through two graphene layers, with a large current peak exhibiting negative differential resistance (NDR) when the drain-to-source voltage aligns the Dirac point. A Verilog-A SymFET model is presented with noise performance for circuit design and evaluation. The NDR phenomenon of the diode-connected SymFET is further explored, and oscillator design considerations are discussed for performance optimization. Simulation results show that the proposed SymFET 3.05 GHz oscillator has a simulated phase noise of -117 dBC/Hz at 1.0 MHz offset, with a power consumption of only 0.23 mW from a 0.30 V supply.