Low Power VCO Design in CMOS

This work covers the design of CMOS fully integrated low power low phase noise voltage controlled oscillators for telecommunication or datacommuni- tion systems. The need for low power is obvious, as mobile wireless telecommunications are battery operated. As wireless telecommunication systems use oscillators in frequency synthesizers for frequency translation, the selectivity and signal to noise ratio of receivers and transmitters depend heavily on the low phase noise performance of the implemented oscillators. Datacommunication s- tems need low jitter, the time-domain equivalent of low phase noise, clocks for data detection and recovery. The power consumption is less critical. The need for multi-band and multi-mode systems pushes the high-integration of telecommunication systems. This is o?ered by sub-micron CMOS feat- ing digital ?exibility. The recent crisis in telecommunication clearly shows that mobile hand-sets became mass-market high-volume consumer products, where low-cost is of prime importance. This need for low-cost products - livens tremendously research towards CMOS alternatives for the bipolar or BiCMOS solutions in use today.

Marc Tiebout, born in Asse (Belgium) in 1969, received the M.S. degree in electrical and mechanical engineering in 1992  from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), and his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Berlin in 2004. In 1993 he joined Siemens AG, Corporate Research and Development, Microelectronics in Munich (Germany), designing analog integrated circuits in CMOS and BiCMOS technologies. In 1997 he switched to the design of radio frequency devices and building blocks in sub-µm CMOS technologies. From summer 1999 to summer 2001, he was with Infineon Technologies AG, Wireless Products, where he worked on RFCMOS circuits and transceivers for cellular wireless communications. He was workpackage leader for the CMOS part of the EC-funded LEMON project  (single chip UMTS transceiver). Currently he is with Infineon Technologies AG, Corporate Research, Munich. His main interest goes into low power highest frequency circuits and systems in standard CMOS. Marc Tiebout has authored and co-authored many publications and patents, mainly in the field of RFCMOS and has been member of IEEE since 1990.