Ultra-Low Power Quadrature LO-Generator

Abstract

This work presents an ultra-low power quadrature local oscillation (LO) generator for mobile transceivers using a low-dropout (LDO) regulator and low noise voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO). Using a loop-gain stabilizer in LDO, the gain of the error amplifier can be constant in a wide range of load current or reference voltage. The LDO achieves high PSR and fast transient-response. Since the proposed LDO is based on the gate-pole dominant, it can be integrated on-chip. For low phase noise, NMOS-type LC-VCO is used. To reduce phase noise, a tail inductor was added. The LDO using a loop-gain stabilizer shows a fast response of 138 ns and a high PSR of −70 dB at 10 kHz to 1 MHz offset frequency, regulating output at 1.0 V with a 1.1 V supply voltage. The VCO shows a frequency range of 7.675 GHz to 12.301 GHz with a power consumption of 10 mW to 12 mW at a regulated supply of 1.0 V.