A 100uW, 1.9GHz Oscillator with Fully Digital Frequency Tuning

Abstract:

A 1.9GHz CMOS digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) is designed in a standard 0.13µm process, targeting ultra low power frequency synthesizers for wireless sensor network transceivers. The oscillator exploits subthreshold device operation and a low 0.5V supply to achieve power consumption of only 100µW. A novel switched capacitor configuration is employed to realize a frequency resolution of 200kHz with a tuning range of 150MHz. High quality bondwire inductors also reduce power consumption. The phase noise is -114dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset, achieving performance competitive with other published work.