A Low Power, Low Phase Noise, 11.8 GHz LC-VCO in 65 nm CMOS for 5G NR Based C-V2X Applications

An 11.8-GHz low-power, low phase noise, 65-nm CMOS LC-VCO for V2X communication standards is presented in this work. To achieve low-phase noise performance to fulfill the 5G NR C-V2X standards, several adjustments are made to the conventional LC-VCO topologies. These adjustments are briefly explained in this work. Presented VCO consumes 3.046 mA current from a 1.2-V power supply. It has -116.13 dBc/Hz phase noise at 1 MHz offset and tuning range between 11.64 GHz and 11.94 GHz. A frequency divider circuit is designed and implemented to the presented VCO to satisfy the frequency spectrum of V2X radio access technologies. To the best of authors' knowledge, this work is the first VCO implemented at 11.8 GHz in a 65-nm CMOS process with the reported phase noise number for 5G NR C-V2X applications.