A 0.5-V 4.8GHz CMOS LC VCO with wide tuning range

A 4.8GHz CMOS LC VCO with 37.5% tuning range in 0.5-V supply is presented. The VCO achieves low power consumption by optimum selection of inductance in the L-C tank. To increase the tuning range, a three-bit switching capacitor array is used for the digital switched tuning. A voltage-boosted technique is used to generate a high voltage for the switches in the digital tuning scheme. Designed in 0.13μm CMOS technology, the proposed VCO achieves a phase noise of -113.8dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset and consumes 2.4mA core current at 0.5 voltage supply.