An Integrated Low-Phase-Noise Voltage Controlled Oscillator for Base Station Applications

This paper describes an integrated VCO using on-chip resonator with the lowest phase noise reported to date. The VCO is in common-base configuration. Measured phase noise at 600kHz, 800kHz, and 3MHz offsets are -129dBc/Hz, -132dBc/Hz, and -148dBc/Hz, respectively. The phase noise performance meets receiver blocking requirements of DCS 1800 Micro base stations. The chip consumes 38mW and generates 3mW at 1.5GHz.