Design and implementation of a low power MEMS based reconfigurable VCO

This paper presents the design and implementation of a low power reconfigurable VCO for a multi-standard receiver. The designed VCO employs MEMS components to replace the passive components to attain lower system power consumption and better performance. Results show that the reconfigurable MEMS-based VCO achieves a frequency tuning ranges of 1.86 GHz to 1.94 GHz, 3.6 GHz to 3.78 GHz and 4.18 GHz to 4.50 GHz for the three communication standards, namely GSM900, DCS1800 and WCDMA. It consumes an average power of 3.8 mW at a supply voltage of 1.2 V. Results also indicate that a 50% reduction of power consumption is achieved when the MEMS components are employed to replace the passive components. This characteristic makes the VCO a better candidate for wireless communication applications where power consumption is the major factor.