A 400uW, 4.7-6.4GHz 45nm CMOS VCO with active area underneath its Above-IC Inductor

A 400uW, 4.7-6.4GHz 45nm CMOS VCO with active area underneath its Above-IC Inductor ■

Jonathan Borremans, G. Carchon, Piet Wambacq, Maarten Kuijk, S. Decoutere

Abstract ■

A 4.7-to-6.4GHz VCO is designed in 45nm bulk CMOS using an Above-IC inductor on top of the active circuitry, yielding 28% area reduction. The inductor is shielded from the circuitry, using the top metal layers of the CMOS back-end, which enables the proposed 3D integration for low-cost performance extension. The fully integrated VCO consumes just 400uW, achieves a FoM of 185dB, and occupies and area of only 0.12mm2.