An eight-phase voltage controlled oscillator with reflection-type modulators in 0.18-¿m CMOS technology

This paper describes a fully integrated eightphase voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) with reflection-type modulators in 0.18-mum CMOS Technology. The characterization of the amplitude and phase errors is successfully demonstrated using the proposed innovative method. The eight-phase VCO achieves a low phase noise of -117.1 dBc/Hz at 1-MHz offset frequency. For the characterization of the amplitude and phase errors, this circuit features a sideband suppression of better than -26 dBc and a LO suppression of better than -18 dBc. From the sideband suppression contours, the measured amplitude and phase errors of the eight-phase VCO are within 0.85 dB and 5deg, respectively. To the best of the authorspsila knowledge, this work is the first attempt to demonstrate the characterization of the amplitude and phase errors for the eight-phase VCO.