Abstract—This paper presents design of high-performance MEMS inductor and CMOS varactor for use in CMOS voltage controlled oscillators (VCO) operating at 2.4 GHz. The high-Q air suspended inductor has been designed by inductance of 2.87 nH using MEMS technology to reduce the resistive loss and the substrate loss. A CMOS varactor has been designed. The DC voltage is 2.5v which is applied to the CMOS and the results of 0.6 pF could be achieved. Through this optimization, less phase noise (-117.7 dBc / Hz at 100 KHz) and lower power consumption (11 mW) have been obtained.

Index Terms—VCO; MEMS; CMOS; Inductor; Varactor;Q factor

M. Rahimi is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia 43400UPM Serdang, Selangor DE, Malaysia
S.S. Jamuar is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia 43400UPM Serdang, Selangor DE, Malaysia
M. N. Hamidon is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia 43400UPM Serdang, Selangor DE, Malaysia
M. R. Ahmad is with the MIMOS Berhad, Technology Park Malaysia,57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
S. A. Mousavi is with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia 43400UPM Serdang, Selangor DE, Malaysia
M. Bayat is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor DE,Malaysia

Cite: M. Rahimi, S. S. Jamuar, M. N. Hamidon, M. R. Ahmad, S. A. Mousavi, and M. Bayat, "Design and Simulation of a 2.4 GHz VCO with High Q MEMS Inductor  and  CMOS  Varactor,"  International  Journal  of  Computer  and
Electrical Engineering vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 251-257, 2009.