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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
A Wide Tuning Range Dual-Core Quad-Mode
Orthogonal-Coupled VCO With Concurrently
Dual-Output Using Parallel
8-Shaped Resonator
Shiyan Sun , Wei Deng , Senior Member, IEEE, Haikun Jia , Member, IEEE, Rui Wu , Member, IEEE,
Chenggang Li, Zhihua Wang , Fellow, IEEE, Zhiming Chen , and Baoyong Chi , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— This article presents a dual-core quad-mode
orthogonal-coupled wide frequency tuning range voltage-
controlled oscillator (VCO) using mode control switches to realize
the even/odd mode selection. Each core of the VCO adopts a
parallel 8-shaped coil structure to avoid the influence of the
other orthogonal-coupled one. Together with capacitor banks
and varactors, the combination of orthogonal-coupled VCO
cores demonstrates an extremely wide frequency tuning range
on the basis of the existing range expanding from the dual-
mode. The proposed VCO can be classified into two cases with
different applications. One is that only one oscillation frequency
is required; thus, four modes together show a wide frequency
range. The other is that two different oscillation signals can be
provided at the same time. The VCO has a measured tuning
range of 8.3–21.7 GHz for the combination of low- and high-
band cores. It consumes 4–6 mW with a measured phase noise of
−127 dBc/Hz at a 10-MHz offset from a carrier of 9.6 GHz, and
the FoM and FoMT are −179 and −199 dBc/Hz, respectively. The
VCO is designed and implemented in the 65-nm complementary
metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology with a die area
of 0.4 mm2 .
Index Terms— Coupled voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO),
dual-core, 8-shaped coil, mode switching, quad-mode, wide tuning
range.
Manuscript received 27 September 2022; accepted 6 November 2022. This
work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development
Program of China under Grant 2020YFB1807300, in part by the Shenzhen
Science and Technology Program under Grant JCYJ20200109113601723
and Grant JCYJ20210324115610028, in part by the Beijing Nova Program
of Science and Technology under Grant Z191100001119078, in part by
the Tsinghua-Samsung Joint Research Project, in part by the CAS Pioneer
Hundred Talents Program, and in part by the Beijing Advanced Innova-
tion Center for Integrated Circuits. (Corresponding authors: Wei Deng;
Zhiming Chen.)
Shiyan Sun and Zhiming Chen are with the School of Integrated Circuits
and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
(e-mail: czm@bit.edu.cn).
Wei Deng and Zhihua Wang are with the School of Integrated Circuits,
BNRist, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China, and also with the
Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, Shenzhen 510857,
China (e-mail: wdeng@tsinghua.edu.cn).
Haikun Jia, Chenggang Li, and Baoyong Chi are with the School of
Integrated Circuits, BNRist, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Rui Wu is with the National Key Laboratory of Microwave Imaging Tech-
nology, Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy
of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100045, China.
Color versions of one or more figures in this article are available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2022.3223914.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2022.3223914
0018-9480 © 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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1
I. I NTRODUCTION
R ECENTLY, wireless and wireline markets keep increas-
ing rapidly, while the local oscillation (LO) generation
is one of the most critical blocks in the wireless or wireline
transceivers [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Although there are
many techniques to generate the LO signals, the phase-locked
loop (PLL) with the embedded voltage-controlled oscillator
(VCO) is the most popular one. For the VCO, low phase noise
characteristic is desired to support a high-order modulation
scheme in wireless transceivers [1], [2], [3] or PAM4 signaling
in wireline transceivers [4], [5], [6], while the frequency tuning
range should be wide enough to cover the operation frequency
band with enough margin to overcome the effects of the
process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) variations. Along
with the development of agile or software-defined radio (SDR)
transceivers, a wide tuning frequency range of up to several
octaves becomes necessary [7], [8]. However, it is difficult
to achieve a wide tuning frequency range, and it degrades the
phase noise performance. There is a tradeoff between the phase
noise performance and the tuning frequency range during the
VCO design [9].
To achieve a wide tuning frequency range while maintaining
low phase noise, it is straightforward to use multiple oscillators
in parallel [10], [11], with each oscillator covering a narrow
frequency range. This method suffers from the large area cost
and relatively complicated RF multiplexor implementation.
Wideband VCOs with well-designed varactors [12], [13],
switched-capacitor arrays [14], [15], and switched-inductors
[16], [17], [18], or transformers [19], [20], [21], [22], [23],
or their combination [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22]
are also proposed; however, few designs achieve a tuning
range higher than 80%, and most of them degrade the phase
noise performance significantly. Recently, multimode multi-
core VCOs are proposed to expand the tuning range to several
octaves while maintaining high phase noise performance [13],
[24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31]. Fig. 1(a) shows
a simplified diagram of the conventional dual-mode coupled
inductor structure. The effective inductance connected to each
resonant tank can be changed by switching the magnetic
coupling mode of the two coils to extend the tuning range
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES

Fig. 1. Simplified structure diagram of conventional multimode multicore VCOs. (a) Mode-Switchable coupled inductor structure. (b) Coupled inductors
with extra common mode inductor structure. (c) Coupled inductors with extra load capacitor structure. (d) Mode-switchable coupled inductor structure with
extra load capacitor structure.

[27]. In Fig. 1(b), considering that the circuit phase state can
be changed by switching magnetic coupling, a common mode
inductor is introduced to the connection point of the two cou-
pled inductors [28]. When the signals of the left and right coils
are in-phase, the inductance L cm is effective in the resonant
network. When the signals of the two coils are out-of-phase,
the inductance L cm is connected to the virtual ground and does
not impact the resonance frequency. In addition to the tuning
range expansion brought by the mode switching of the coupled
inductor, this structure can also benefit from the “effective”
or “ineffective” of the additional inductor L cm in the resonant
tank. The method of coupled inductors mode switching is also
adopted in Fig. 1(c) [29]. The difference is that an expandable
capacitor is added to the resonant tank, which is “visible”
or “invisible,” when the two inductors connected to C L are
out-of-phase or in-phase, respectively. Summarizing the above
structures, it is feasible to add an extra component that is
configurable with the mode switching of coupled inductors
to further expand the tuning range. Combining the method
in Fig. 1(a) and (c), the mode-switchable coupled inductor
structure with an extra load capacitor structure is adopted in
Fig. 1(d) [30]. The mode switching of the coupled inductor and
the introduction of an additional capacitor into the resonant
network can be independently controlled. Thus, a total of four
different modes greatly expand the resonant center frequency
resulting in a tuning range greater than 70%.
It can also expand the VCO tuning range by switching
among different VCO cores. However, it usually occupies a
huge die area since each VCO core contains at least one
area-hungry inductor or transformer. Safarian and Hashemi
[13] use a compact high-order resonator formed by three
coupled inductors to create one trimode oscillator. The VCO
circuit in [31] uses two nested inductor coils to save the die
area. Each coil has an “8” shape that only induces a vanishing
magnetic field on another coil, which eliminates the coupling
between coils. As a result, the smaller coil can be placed within
the larger one. Two independent VCO cores achieve separated
tuning curves with sufficient overlap. This VCO technique
achieves a wide frequency tuning range using a compact
silicon area, and it is robust to the interferences introduced by
the high-power devices since the symmetrical 8-shaped coils
cancel the magnetic field from external aggressors. However,
this kind of VCO suffers from the following disadvantages.
1) The series 8-shaped coils deteriorate the inductor qual-
ity factor since considerably longer metal routing is needed
to achieve the same inductance compared with a typical
non-8-shaped inductor.
2) The series 8-shaped coils are actually another form of
a two-turn (or multiturn) inductor; thus, it is difficult for this
kind of coil to realize relatively low inductance for millimeter-
wave and higher frequency applications.
In order to solve the abovementioned issues and further
expand the available frequency tuning range, this article
introduces a dual-core quad-mode orthogonal-coupled VCO
technique using parallel 8-shaped resonators, as shown in
Fig. 2. The oscillator contains two orthogonal-coupled VCO
cores, while each of them is a dual-mode inductor-coupled
VCO. When the magnetic coupling mode of the 8-shaped
coil changes, the common coil contributes different induc-
tances, and the two orthogonal-coupled 8-shaped coils can
also be designed independently, which has higher design
flexibility than the methods shown in Fig. 1. The proposed
technique enables more configurable modes to expand the
resonance frequency range and improves the minimum achiev-
able inductance value, which is necessary for high-frequency
applications. Fabricated in the 65-nm complementary metal-
oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the proposed VCO
achieves an 8.3–21.7-GHz continuous tuning range yielding a
normalized frequency tuning range of 89.3%.
Some parts of this article are disclosed in [32], where
the basic circuit blocks and limited measurement results are
briefly presented. This article is organized as follows. The
parallel 8-shaped coils and the proposed dual-core quad-
mode orthogonal-coupled VCO are discussed in Section II.
Section III explains the detailed circuit implementation of the
VCO. Section IV summarizes measurement results. Finally,
a conclusion is given in Section V.
II. D UAL -C ORE Q UAD -M ODE
O RTHOGONAL -C OUPLED VCO
Different from previously reported wideband VCO tech-
niques [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], this article

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SUN et al.: WIDE TUNING RANGE DUAL-CORE QUAD-MODE ORTHOGONAL-COUPLED VCO
Fig. 2. Architecture of the proposed dual-core quad-mode orthogonal-coupled
oscillator. (a) Vertical 8-shaped inductor of the dual-core VCO. (b) Horizontal
8-shaped inductor of the dual-core VCO.
proposes dual-core quad-mode orthogonal-coupled VCO using
parallel 8-shaped resonators. Conventional series 8-shaped coil
suffers from limited quality factor [31] and limited minimum
achievable inductance due to the design rule check (DRC)
defined by the semiconductor manufacturer, as shown in
Fig. 3(a). In contrast, the proposed parallel 8-shaped coil has
the advantage of a higher quality factor due to less resistance
loss. In addition, the smaller coil can be adopted to achieve
a smaller inductance in the proposed parallel 8-shaped coil,
which makes it feasible to realize higher frequency oscillators.
Fig. 3(b) shows the comparison of the quality factor between
the conventional series 8-shaped inductor and the proposed
parallel 8-shaped inductor with the same inductance. It indi-
cates that the quality factor of the conventional series 8-shaped
inductor is lower than that of the proposed parallel 8-shaped
inductor.
Besides a higher quality factor, the parallel coil is suitable
to build a reconfigurable oscillator that can generate two
operation modes with the mode control module. It is feasible
to place the smaller coil inside the larger coil in one symmetric
fashion to realize the multicore oscillator. Combining the
multimode and the multicore methods, the dual-core quad-
mode orthogonal-coupled VCO is introduced in this article.
The oscillator contains two orthogonal-coupled VCO cores,
while each of them is an inductor-coupled LC VCO. Each
VCO core could work in two modes, and one of them is
equivalent to the 8-shaped inductor scheme, where each core
is “invisible” to the other one by a proper configuration.
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3
Fig. 3. Comparison of (a) series and parallel 8-shaped coils in layout
and shrink limitation, and (b) quality factor between the conventional series
8-shaped inductor and the proposed parallel 8-shaped inductor with the same
inductance.
Therefore, the proposed VCO supports four modes and gener-
ates four continuous tuning curves with ever-increasing center
oscillation frequency and proper frequency overlap. The quad-
mode VCO greatly extends its frequency tuning range.
Noted that the two stacked VCO cores can work inde-
pendently, the proposed VCO can be classified into two
operation cases based on whether the two VCO cores work
simultaneously:
1) Case A is used when the whole VCO only outputs a
single frequency at a time. In this case, the proposed
VCO has four modes in total.
2) Case B is used when the VCO outputs two different
frequency oscillation signals concurrently. In this case,
each VCO core can work independently. However, the
operating frequencies of the two cores need to be
sufficiently away from each in order to reduce the
interference between the dual cores.
A. Parallel 8-Shaped Dual-Core VCO
In order to simplify the analysis of the proposed VCO, the
parallel dual-mode 8-shaped structure is analyzed in this part.
The mode switching operation of the dual-mode 8-shaped core
is presented in Fig. 4. The 8-shaped coil can be considered
as two identical inductors L with a mutual inductance M.
The operation mode can be configured by the four switches
(SW1, SW2, SW3, and SW4). As shown in Fig. 4(b),
when SW1/SW2 is turned on and SW3/SW4 (not shown in
the figure due to its high impedance in this condition) is
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES

where η = L com /L shunt and Re represents the loss resistance

of each side in the even mode. Assume that this loss value
is linearly related to the length of the coil. When the tank is
regarded as a low-loss one (Re → 0), the resonance frequency
of the network is given by
1
ωL = √ (2)
2L shunt (1 + km + η)C
The magnitude of Z 11(22) at ω L could be obtained when (2)
Fig. 4. Two working states of the dual-mode 8-shaped core due to the current is put in (1)

Z L = |Z 11 ( j ω)|ω=ωL
direction. (a) Dual-mode 8-shaped core. (b) Even mode. (c) Odd mode.
 
 
2L shunt (1 + km + η) km 2
= Q 1+
2 + 1 (3)
C 1+η
where Q = ωL single /Rsingle is the quality factor of the
noncoupled single coil.
For the odd mode, currents of equal magnitude and opposite
directions in the common wire cancel each other, resulting in
an invisible L com to the signals. Thus, the equivalent Z 11(22)
Fig. 5. Dual-mode VCO model with the parallel 8-shaped inductor-coupled is updated to
resonant tank.
2L shunt (1 − km )s + Ro
Z 11(22) (s) = (4)
turned off, the corresponding nodes P1 (P2) and P3 (P4) are 2L shunt (1 − km )Cs 2 + C Ro s + 1
in-phase. The effective coils for each side are the two shunt where Ro represents the loss resistance of each side in the
coils (P1D1 + P2D2 and P3D1 + P4D2) and the common odd mode. By a similar derivation, the resonance frequency
coil (D1D2), which is the even mode. On the contrary, when ω H and its corresponding amplitude are given by
SW3/SW4 is turned on and SW1/SW2 (not shown in the 1
ωH = √ (5)
 − km )C
2L shunt (1
figure due to its high impedance in this condition) are turned
off, the nodes P1 (P2) and P4 (P3) are in-phase, as shown in Z H = |Z 11 ( j ω)|ω=ω H
Fig. 4(c). The effective coils for each side are only the two  
shunt coils (P1D1 + P2D2 and P3D1 + P4D2), which is the 2L shunt (1 − km )  2
= Q (1 − km )2 + 1 . (6)
odd mode. For the common coil (D1D2), because the signals C
cancel each other out through the line, it shows no inductance. According to (2) and (5), it is seen that the frequency
Connecting the coupled inductors with capacitors and active difference between the two modes and Z L/H depends on km
modules, the dual-mode VCO model with the parallel 8-shaped and η. A high value of km and η means more split center
inductor-coupled resonant tank is shown in Fig. 5. Each frequency but a larger ratio of Z L and Z H , which means more
inductor is composed of a common coil L com and two shunt difficult to start oscillation in the odd mode.
coils L shunt with a total loss element R for each tank that is Supposing that the active part can provide a transconduc-
divided by two for the differential circuit. C1 and C2 are the tance of gm , then the startup condition can be written as
capacitors parallel with the left and right coils, respectively, gm · |Z 11 ( j ωosc )| > 1 (7)
with the coupling coefficient km that is mainly derived from
L shunt . For the parallel 8-shaped inductor, the two tanks are
 Z 11 ( j ωosc) = 0. (8)
exactly the same; thus, the two sides of the VCO core share In both modes, it is known that ωosc = ω L/H . Therefore,
the same parameters, which means that X 1 = X 2 = X when putting (3) and (6) into (7) and (8), the startup condition
(X = L shunt , C, R, G m ) Each core of the oscillator provides can be obtained.
two working modes depending on the current direction through The EM simulation model of the 8-shaped coupled inductor
the common wire, as shown in Fig. 4. The two states with is inserted into the model shown in Fig. 4. The coupled
different oscillation frequencies and Z 11 will be discussed as resonator without the active parts is simulated in the even
follows. mode and the odd mode, respectively, and the simulated Z 11
For the even mode, to calculate Z 11 of each side, P1 and P3 magnitude is shown in Fig. 6. In the simulation environment,
are regarded as the same point, and so are P2 and P4 , which the capacitors C1 and C2 are replaced by the ideal capacitors
creates a new oscillator with two coupled inductors. The new of 500 fF. The simulated L shunt , L com , and km of the 8-shaped
oscillator is made up of double G m and half the tank with inductor are 210.4 pH, 121.1 pH, and 0.117 around 8 GHz
the same oscillation frequency. Thus, the equivalent Z 11(22) and 215.9 pH, 113 pH, and 0.138 around 11 GHz. According
for each side could be obtained to (1)–(6), the calculated f L and f H are 8.44 and 11.67 GHz,
respectively, and the highest values of the half Z 11 magnitude
2L shunt (1 + km + η)s + Re
Z 11(22) (s) = (1) are 249.0 and 181.2, respectively, which are close to the
2L shunt (1 + km + η)Cs 2 + C Re s + 1 simulation results shown in Fig. 6.

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SUN et al.: WIDE TUNING RANGE DUAL-CORE QUAD-MODE ORTHOGONAL-COUPLED VCO
Fig. 6. Simulated Z 11 magnitude of the model shown in Fig. 5 without
the active part, where the 8-shaped inductor model is replaced by the
corresponding EM-simulated inductor model.
 2 
Fig. 7. Diagram and connection of the mode switch. (a) Connection diagram
of the mode switch. (b) Schematic of the mode switch. (c) Equivalent parasitic
model in the even mode. (d) Equivalent parasitic model in the odd mode.
B. Mode Switching Block
In order to simplify the analysis of the structure and the
calculation of the oscillation frequency, the ideal switch model
is chosen in the diagram in Fig. 4. To implement the mode
switching, the proposed VCO adopts a switch structure in
which the “positive resistor” that forces the connection nodes
to have the same phase and the “negative resistor” that
forces the connection nodes to have the opposite phase are
connected in parallel. The mode switching blocks [27] and
their connection diagram of the mode switch with the 8-shaped
inductor are shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 7(a) shows the connection
diagram of the mode switch. Fig. 7(b) shows the schematic of
the mode switch. In the even mode, the SWLB is turned on,
and SWHB is turned off. The equivalent parasitic model of the
switch is shown in Fig. 7(c). Rswl,ON is the ON-resistance of
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5
SWLB . Rswh,OFF is the turn-off resistance of the cross-coupled
transistor, which presents a high resistance (dozens of Kohms).
Cswl,ON and Cswh,OFF are the parasitic capacitors of turned-on
SWLB and turned-off cross-coupled transistors of SWHB . For
simplicity, the parasitic resistors of the traces can be absorbed
into Rswl,ON . In the odd mode, SWHB is turned on, and SWLB
is turned off. The equivalent parasitic model of the switch
is shown in Fig. 7(d). Rswh,ON exhibits negative resistance
due to the properties of the cross-coupled transistor, which
forces the connected nodes to be out of phase. Rswl,off is
the turn-off resistance of SWLB , which is high resistance.
The total parasitic capacitance is the sum of Cswl,off and
Cswh,ON . The parasitic capacitor introduced by the switch
(dozens of femtofarads) is much smaller than the capacitor
of the resonant tank, which can slightly lower the resonant
frequency and is removed in the subsequent discussion. The
overall parasitic impedance introduced by the switch and trace
is Z sw , which can be regarded as a low quality factor (1)
inductor. According to the serial-to-parallel conversion model
of the inductor, the equivalent parallel inductor of Z sw will be
greatly increased by (Q 2 + 1)/Q 2 , and the equivalent parallel
resistor will be slightly increased. A small value of switch
resistor (Rswl,on and |Rswh,OFF |) enhances the coupling of the
two VCOs but results in a larger transistor size to introduce
more parasitic capacitance.
C. Phase Noise
According to the classical phase noise (L) model derived
by Leeson [38]
4k B T R p ω0
L(ω) = 10 · log F 2
Vosc 2Qω
where k B is Boltzmann’s constant, T is the absolute temper-
ature, R p is an equivalent parallel tank resistance, and F is a
noise factor of the active device. An output-connected dual-
core VCO benefits phase noise reduction compared with a
single-core VCO with the same condition. This is because
the capacitance is doubled, and the inductance is halved
with the same frequency. Assuming that the quality factor is
unchanged, R p is reduced by the reason of parallel passive
devices. In general, N-core coupled VCO shows a better
phase noise performance by the times N [33]: L N (ω) =
L1 (ω) − 10 log N. Thus, a dual-core VCO benefits 3-dB
phase noise enhancement ideally. Output-connected multicore
VCO has the same oscillation frequency as the corresponding
single-core one since this kind of coupling does not change
each core’s capacitance and inductance. However, the inductor-
coupled 8-shaped VCO does not have such characteristics.
Though the capacitor is not involved in the coupling, the
equivalent inductance of the tank is changed by the fac-
tor containing km and η compared with the corresponding
uncoupled single coil, resulting in the change of the final
oscillation frequency. Therefore, in the subsequent analysis,
when discussing the improvement of the phase noise through
coupling, the comparison object is set as a virtual VCO of the
same frequency whose inductor is changed due to the coupling.
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
F OUR C ENTER F REQUENCY OF P ROPOSED VCO
Fig. 8. Equivalent model of the 8-shaped inductor resonator of the even and
the odd mode. (a) T-type model of the even mode. (b) PI-type model of the
even mode. (c) Equivalent model of the odd mode.
When the inductor-coupled VCO works in the even mode,
in order to better illustrate the influence of the inductive
coupling of the 8-shaped inductor and the mode switch on the
VCO phase noise, considering that the structure in Fig. 5 is
not conducive to modeling, the T-type coupling model of the
even mode in Fig. 8(a) is converted to a PI-type one, as shown
in Fig. 8(b). Because km of L shunt is so small that the effect
is to slightly change the value of L com and L shunt in different
modes, the coupled tank model is modified, as shown in Fig. 8,
in which the km is removed for simplicity. After conversion,
L p = 2(L com + L shunt ), L s = 2(L shunt + L 2shunt /L com ), and
Z c represents the coupling impedance. Suppose that the noise
source is i n2 , and the noise power of each VCO’s different
output can be obtained
Vn2 = i n2 · |Z tank |2 · ηcouple
TABLE I
state of two VCO cores, two different conditions (Case A and
Case B) are discussed in this article. The details are illustrated
below.
1) Case A: Only One Core Is Working: According to four
different current directions of four active parts, Fig. 9 shows
the four resonant modes of the proposed VCO. Two coils of
the dual-core VCO are implemented by using the top and
second top metals (Metal 9 and Metal 8), respectively. Note
that two orthogonal-coupled coils have negligible influence
on each other; thus, the two VCO cores can be regarded
as independent modules. Suppose that each side shunt coil
inductance of Metal 9 and Metal 8 single-turn coils is L st9 and
L st8 , respectively. If the middle value of the proper capacitor
bank connected to each core is C9 and C8 , respectively, the
four center frequency could be obtained, as shown in Table I,
where ωi L/H and ηi (i = 8 or 9) are the oscillation frequency
and the inductance ratio of common coil wire and one shunt
coil. Note that the mode (M9: Odd and M8: Odd) is not listed
here. This is because the odd mode is not a desired one to
cancel the magnetic field produced by the coils.
Consider the influence of the orthogonal-coupled 8-shaped
coils on each other. When one of the two VCO cores is
working, the other one should be turned off. Though the dual-
core 8-shaped VCO is working in the even mode, no matter
(9) how symmetrical the coil is placed, the magnetic field in the

1 |2Z C + Z tank |2 + |Z tank |2
ηcouple =
4 |Z C + Z tank |2
where Z tank is the tank impendence of L p and C. When Rsw
in Z C is regarded as 0 or an infinite value, ηcouple is 0.5 or 1,
which means a 3- or 0-dB phase noise improvement [33],
respectively.
In the odd mode, even though L com disappears due to the
reverse current of two tanks and the L shunt coil is weakly
coupled, the two resonators are still linked together by the
negative resistance of the mode switch. If the differential
position of the resonator on the right is reversed up and
down, as shown in Fig 7(c), the coupling relationship is still
established with a positive Rsw . As a result, the odd mode can
also benefit the 3-dB phase noise improvement as the even
mode.
D. Orthogonal-Coupled VCO and Its Two Cases
According to the magnetic field cancellation characteristic
of the 8-shaped coils, the inductor-coupled oscillator dis-
cussed above can be stacked on top of another one. To real-
ize a sufficiently separated center frequency of two VCO
cores, the smaller core is placed inside the larger one in an
orthogonal-coupled way to avoid the crowded arrangement
of active devices and capacitor array. Based on the working
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space cannot be completely canceled. There are two typical
(10)
situations to describe the phenomenon. First, when a point is
not in the symmetry axis along the overlapping wire of the
working 8-shaped coils and is close to the orthogonal-coupled
tank but outside the coil, two magnetic field vectors of different
strength and opposite directions are generated due to the
distance difference from this point to the symmetry point
pair in the dual-core coil. Second, inside each coil’s hole,
the magnetic field direction is unidirectional. As a result,
although there is magnetic field cancellation in the even mode,
the nonworking coil can still capture the changing magnetic
field of the working one. Magnetic leakage reduces the induc-
tance of the working coil. In order to explore the effect of
the proposed orthogonal-coupled inductor structure on the
8-shaped inductor, the comparison between the two structures
is presented in Fig. 10. It can be seen from Fig. 10(a) that
the inductance of the 8-shaped inductor and the orthogonal-
coupled inductor is similar at low frequency, but, since the
orthogonal-coupled inductor also contains additional coupling
with another set of coils, it shows a slightly lower inductance
and much lower self-resonant frequency. The quality factor of
the orthogonal-coupled inductor is also lower than that of the
8-shaped one. In order to explore the influence of the inductor
of the two structures on the tuning range, the same capacitor
array and cross-coupling pair were added to the two inductors.
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SUN et al.: WIDE TUNING RANGE DUAL-CORE QUAD-MODE ORTHOGONAL-COUPLED VCO 7

Fig. 9. Four resonant modes and their magnetic field directions corresponding to the current direction. (a) M9 core: even mode; M8 core: even mode. (b) M9
core: even mode; M8 core: odd mode. (c) M9 core: odd mode; M8 core: even mode. (d) M9 core: odd mode; M8 core: odd mode.

TABLE II
S IMULATED S IGNAL L EAKAGE F ROM O NE VCO C ORE TO THE O THER
O NE W HEN THE T WO C ORES A RE W ORKING S IMULTANEOUSLY

2) Case B: Two Cores Are Working Simultaneously: This

Fig. 10. Inductor performance comparison of the 8-shaped inductor and
orthogonal-coupled inductor: (a) comparison of inductance and quality factor
and (b) comparison of frequency tuning range.
The simulated frequency range with the capacitor array is
shown in Fig. 10(b). Since the inductance of the orthogonal-
coupled structure is smaller, a slightly higher center resonance
frequency and a slightly wider frequency range are obtained.
As a result, the effect introduced by the orthogonal-coupled
8-shaped inductors is limited and negligible.
configuration mode is utilized in that two VCO cores are
working simultaneously and generate two different oscillation
signals. This operation mode requires proper isolation of the
two VCO cores.
To better illustrate this issue, four resonant modes and their
magnetic direction can be discussed for the second time in
Fig. 9. The even mode of each core produces an opposite
magnetic field to cancel the influence on the other coil, while
the odd mode coil has relatively weak cancellation capability.
Therefore, if better isolation signals from two independent
VCO cores are desired, it is necessary to ensure that both
VCO cores work in the even mode. To show the influence
of one VCO core on the other one in different modes, each
core is connected by a proper negative resistance and capacitor
array, and the simulated results are shown in Fig. 11. A list
of signal leakage from one VCO core to the other one when
the two cores are working simultaneously is given in Table II.
The value in Table II represents the difference between the
amplitude of the leakage signal (aggressor) and that of the
oscillation signal (victim). It can be seen that the even mode
coil is more like a “harmless” state, which does not leak signal
to the other coil, while the odd mode coil is more like an
“offensive” state that leaks about 20-dB signal compared with
the output signal. However, the dual-odd mode of the two cores
makes the two oscillators heavily mixed, especially when the

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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
Fig. 11. Simulated VCO core outputs in different modes: (a) M8 core: even
mode and M9 core: even mode; (b) M8 core: even mode and M9 core: odd
mode; (c) M8 core: odd mode and M9 core: even mode; and (d) M8 core:
odd mode and M9 core: odd mode.
frequency of the two signals is close enough. In general, the
leaked spur is minimal only in the even mode, which is also
the most suitable mode for simultaneous operation.
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Fig. 12. Simulated signal leakage that introduced by the M8 VCO core
mismatch received by the M9 VCO core.
The isolation between M8 core and M9 core is achieved by
the cancellation of the magnetic field owing to the symmetrical
8-shaped inductor. The mismatch of the resonant tank coupled
with the 8-shaped inductor weakens the isolation of the two
cores to some extent. To explore the deterioration of isolation
strength due to the frequency mismatch, some parasitic are
artificially created on one side of the 8-shaped resonator of the
M8 core, resulting in the mismatch of the resonant frequencies
on both sides. However, due to the effect of the coupling
switch, the two sides can still oscillate at the same frequency
eventually, and the final stable frequency will be lower than
that of the original state. The abscissa in Fig. 12 is the
frequency reduction percentage of M8 core VCO caused by
the increase in the created parasitics, and the ordinate is the
strength of the signal leaked from the M8 core to the M9 core
relative to the oscillating signal of the M9 core. It can be found
that, at zero mismatch points, the leakage signal strength is
negligibly low. As the mismatch increases to 3%, the leakage
signal (aggressor) strength is still 40 dB lower than the signal
strength of the victim.
The signal leaked from one core to the other core varies
with the difference between the operating frequencies of the
two cores. The simulation results for this phenomenon are
shown in Fig. 13, which shows the signal leakage between
the M8 core (even mode) and the M9 core (odd mode).
About −20-dB signal leaked from M9 core to M8 core from
0.2- to 2-GHz operating frequency difference, which shows
low-frequency sensitivity. The leakage signal from the M8
core to the M9 core decreases sharply with the increase in
the operating frequency difference and eventually flattens out.
The corner frequency is about 1 GHz, and the leakage signal
at this frequency difference is about −50 dB.
III. I MPLEMENT OF THE P ROPOSED VCO
Fig. 14 shows the detailed circuit schematic of the proposed
dual-core quad-mode orthogonal-coupled oscillator. The active
devices are all identical in each core, and the differential
CMOS pair provides a proper negative resistance to maintain
oscillation. A 3-bit capacitance bank and a 4-bit capacitor bank
are connected with the second top and top metals, respectively.
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SUN et al.: WIDE TUNING RANGE DUAL-CORE QUAD-MODE ORTHOGONAL-COUPLED VCO
Fig. 13. Simulated signal leakage between M8 core (even mode) and M9
core (odd mode) versus operating frequency difference.
Fig. 14. Detailed schematic of the proposed dual-core orthogonal-coupled
VCO.
Each capacitor bank has a pair of nMOS varactors to cover
the frequency gap of the capacitance bank LSB [34].
The smaller coil is implemented with the top metal, while
the larger coil is designed with the second top metal and placed
beneath the smaller coil to greatly save the occupied area. The
mode switch shown in Fig. 14 consists of the shunt switch
(SWLB , ON for the even mode) and cross-coupled nMOS pair
with a tail switch (SWHB , ON for the odd mode) [27]. The
capacitive tuning and mode switching can provide continuous
frequency coverage across a very wide range.
Fig. 15 shows the top view of the proposed orthogonal-
coupled inductors. Metal 9 and Metal 8 are used for the top
metal and the second top metal, respectively. All coils use
a 12-μm-wide metal line, and the common wire of the 8-
shaped coil is designed long enough to increase the amount of
change in inductance between mode switching. Fig. 16 shows
the simulated half-inductance of each inductor in the even and
odd modes. The mode switching leads to a 60- and 40-pH
inductance difference (which is multiplied by 2 based on the
data in Fig. 16 in order to restore their original inductance)
for M8 and M9 inductors, respectively.
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9
Fig. 15. Top view of the proposed orthogonal-coupled inductors.
Fig. 16. Simulated half inductance of each VCO core transformer in the
even and odd modes.
The simulated Rswl,ON and Cswl,OFF of SWLB are 44.9  and
18.2 fF, respectively. The simulated Rswh,ON and Cswh,OFF of
SW H B are −66.7  and 41.3 fF, respectively. The turn-on and
turn-off gate voltages for SWLB are 0 and 0.8V, respectively.
The turn-on and turn-off gate voltages for SWHB are 0.8
and 0V, respectively. The simulated frequency range of the
proposed VCO is presented in Fig. 17, which is from 8.7 to
21.7 GHz. The simulated phase noise of the proposed VCO is
presented in Fig. 18, which is from −121.7 to −129.8 dBc/Hz
at a 10-MHz offset frequency. The simulated output wave-
forms of the same side of the 8-shaped inductor in the even
and odd modes are shown in Fig. 19. In the even mode, the
waveforms of VOP1 and VOP2 are in phase, and in the odd
mode, the waveforms are out of phase.
In the proposed VCO structure, the center-tapped trace
of the inductor, as shown in Fig. 15, introduces additional
parasitics, and various simulations are performed to reflect the
effect of the trace. An EM simulation of the 8-shaped inductor
with and without the center-tapped trace is done. The results
show that the inductor without the center-tapped trace has a
higher self-resonant frequency, and the inductance value is
increased by 5%∼8% compared to that with the center-tapped
trace. In addition, the inductor without the center-tapped
trace also has a slightly higher quality factor. Considering
a high-power device, such as a VCO, a thick power trace
is necessary even in crowded inductor coils. Another com-
parative simulation is to verify the effect of harmonics on
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10
Fig. 17. Simulated frequency range of the proposed VCO: (a) M8 VCO
output in the even mode, (b) M8 VCO output in the odd mode, (c) M9 VCO
output in the even mode, and (d) M9 VCO output in the odd mode.
Fig. 18. Simulated phase noise of the proposed VCO.
Fig. 19. Simulated output waveforms of the same side of the 8-shaped
inductor in the even and odd modes.
the power trace. Multiple VDD labels are inserted on the
center-tapped trace of the inductor every 40-μm distance in
the EM simulator, which approximates the power trace as an
ac ground but retains the capacitance parasitics between the
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
Fig. 20. Chip micrograph.
coils. Embed the new inductor into a model consistent with
the rest of the proposed VCO; the simulation results show that
the resonant frequency fluctuation and phase noise degradation
are negligible (frequency fluctuation is less than 20 MHz, and
phase noise degradation is less than 0.1 dB) compared to the
proposed structure.
IV. M EASUREMENT R ESULTS
The proposed wide-tuning-range dual-core orthogonal-
coupled VCO is designed and fabricated in the 65-nm CMOS
technology occupying a die area of 0.4 mm2 . Fig. 20 shows
the chip micrograph. The measured frequency tuning range
and phase noise in this article are updated using a fresh chip
with the optimized setting; thus, the data are slightly different
from that in the CICC paper [32].
The outputs of the VCOs are fed separately to an R&S
FSWP50 phase noise analyzer for phase noise and frequency
coverage measurement through on-chip buffers. The test
results consist of two parts: the first is the case where two
VCO cores work alone, and the second is the case of two
cores working concurrently.
A. Case A: Only One Core Is Working
Fig. 21 shows the measured output frequency versus the
varactor control voltage at different capacitor bank and mode
settings. It is shown in Fig. 21(a) and (b) that the low-band
VCO has a tuning range from 8.3 to 15.7 GHz with a
frequency extension of 1.6 GHz by switching the even and
odd modes. This mode switch has a 28% increase in the tuning
range. It is shown in Fig. 21(c) and (d) that the frequency range
from 12.9 to 21.7 GHz is achieved by the high-band VCO with
a frequency extension of 3.2 GHz, which is a 57% increase.
The VCOs have a total coverage from 8.3 to 21.7 GHz with
a tuning range overlap larger than 300 MHz. The simulated
frequency is slightly higher than the measured one, which is
within the error of the design when taking into account the
uncertainties of the modeling and manufacturing.
Fig. 22 reports the measured phase noise versus offset
frequency at four typical oscillation frequencies that are
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SUN et al.: WIDE TUNING RANGE DUAL-CORE QUAD-MODE ORTHOGONAL-COUPLED VCO 11

Fig. 21. Measured frequency tuning range of the two VCOs in two modes.
(a) M8 core VCO in the even mode. (b) M8 core VCO in the odd mode.
(c) M9 core VCO in the even mode. (d) M9 core VCO in the odd mode.

obtained at dual-mode from each VCO core. Fig. 23 shows

the plot of phase noise at a 10-MHz offset (single-core, red
dots), figure-of-merit (FoM), and tuning-range FoM (FoMT )
across the frequency tuning range. The typical phase noise is
−127 dBc/Hz at a 10-MHz offset frequency (from a carrier of
9.6 GHz) with a power consumption of 4.3 mW. The phase
noise at the minimum and maximum oscillation frequencies is
−130.0 and −121.5 dBc/Hz, respectively. The corresponding
power consumption is 4.1 and 5.6 mW, respectively. The figure
of merit of the dual-core VCO varies from 178 to 183 dBc/Hz
across the tuning range. The FoMT varies from 198 to
202 dBc/Hz. In the abovementioned measurements, when one
VCO core, including its buffer, is enabled, the other VCO
core, including its buffer, is disabled.
B. Case B: Two Cores Are Working Simultaneously
Fig. 24 demonstrates the simultaneous oscillation of the
dual-core orthogonal-coupled VCO with the concurrent dual-
frequency spectrum when the two cores are configured in four
different modes. In each mode, the spectrum on the upper
side is measured from the output of the high-band VCO, and
the spectrum on the lower side is measured from the output
of the low-band VCO. The two on-chip test buffers for each
VCO core are disabled in order to avoid self-mixing of the
two cores at the buffer stage, which leads to a relatively
low output power level. It can be observed that, when either
of the two VCOs operates in the even mode, they have no
influence on each other. However, if both of the VCOs operate
in the odd mode, there are prone to oscillation nearby. The
measurement results show leaked spurs when the two output
frequencies are in the nearby range, which is undesired for
most frequency synthesis and clocking generation applications.
Thus, Case B requires the concurrent dual-core operation
to work when the two output frequencies are sufficiently
away from each. With the following driver stages, a relatively
Fig. 22. Measured phase noise at four typical oscillation frequencies. (a) M8
core: even mode. (b) M8 core: odd mode. (c) M9 core: even mode. (d) M9
core: odd mode.
“pure” oscillation signal can be obtained. However, in the case
of digital clocking applications for system-on-chips (SoC),
period jitter is the main concerned factor, which determines
dynamic clock uncertainties [39], [40]. In the calculation of
the period jitter, the coupled spurious signal can be suppressed
by the period jitter weighting factor with the sinc function,
thereby reducing the overall period jitter contribution. The
proposed VCO is comparatively measured under the single-
core operation and the concurrent dual-core operation. The
oscillation frequency of the dual-core working obtained from
the measurement is shown in Fig. 25. The resonant frequency
in the dual-core mode has a negligible change compared to
the frequency in single-core operation, which is about several
MHz to tens of MHz. The measured phase noise at a 10-MHz
offset of the proposed VCO in the case of the single- and
dual-core operations in the even and odd modes is shown
in Fig. 23(a), which shows that the effect of the dual-core
operation on the phase noise is extremely weak.
Fig. 26 shows the measured spectrums of the proposed dual-
core quad-mode VCO with various outputs. The left three
peaks are from the low band VCO core, and the right three

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12 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES

TABLE III
P ERFORMANCE S UMMARY AND C OMPARISON

Fig. 24. Measured concurrent dual-frequency spectrum. (a) M8 core: even

mode and M9 core: even mode. (b) M8 core: even mode and M9 core:
Fig. 23. Measured (a) phase noise in Case A and Case B at a 10-MHz offset
and (b) FoM and FOMT across the tuning range. odd mode. (c) M8 core: odd mode and M9 core: even mode. (d) M8 core:
odd mode and M9 core: odd mode.

ones are from the high band VCO core. In addition, the peaks dual-core quad-mode orthogonal-coupled VCO has the widest
of 16.86 and 20.50 GHz are the second harmonic. frequency tuning range. Generally, the more the number
Table III summarizes the measurement results and shows of modes, the wider the tuning range. Shu et al. [30]
the comparison of the work with recent art. The proposed adopt a quad-core quad-mode structure that shows a better

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SUN et al.: WIDE TUNING RANGE DUAL-CORE QUAD-MODE ORTHOGONAL-COUPLED VCO
Fig. 25. Measured frequency tuning range of the two VCOs working
concurrently. (a) M8 core VCO in the even mode. (b) M8 core VCO in the
odd mode. (c) M9 core VCO in the even mode. (d) M9 core VCO in the odd
mode.
Fig. 26. Measured overlapped spectrum with typical output frequencies.
frequency range ratio than other methods. However, the pro-
posed orthogonal-coupled VCO still presents a higher range
with a relatively appropriate phase noise performance due
to the multimode multicore method. The FoMT performance
is also at an upstream level with a low power consumption
of 4–6 mW.
V. C ONCLUSION
In this article, a VCO using the quad-mode dual-core
orthogonal-coupled parallel 8-shaped resonator is proposed.
Thanks to the multicore multimode method, the operating fre-
quency of the proposed VCO greatly increased. The 8-shaped
inductors can effectively cancel the interference between the
two orthogonally coupled VCO cores. According to different
application scenarios, the proposed VCO can generate four
modes for a single output frequency with a wide tuning range,
or it can generate two signals that work at different frequencies
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13
at the same time. The proposed VCO is designed and fab-
ricated in the 65-nm CMOS technology and has a measured
frequency tuning range of 8.3–21.7 GHz. The measured phase
noise of −127 dBc/Hz at a 10-MHz offset from a carrier
of 9.6 GHz is achieved. The FoM and FoMT are 179 and
199 dBc/Hz, respectively.
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
Shiyan Sun received the B.S. degree in electronic
engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technol-
ogy, Beijing, China, in 2015, where he is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the School of Informa-
tion and Electronics.
His research interests include millimeter-wave cir-
cuit and system design.
Wei Deng (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.S.
and M.S. degrees in electronic engineering from the
University of Electronic Science and Technology
of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2006 and
2009, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic
engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology,
Tokyo, Japan, in 2013.
From 2013 to 2014, he was a Post-Doctoral
Researcher with the Tokyo Institute of Technol-
ogy. From 2015 to 2019, he was with Apple Inc.,
Cupertino, CA, USA, working on radio frequency
(RF), millimeter-wave (mm-wave), and mixed-signal IC design for wireless
transceivers and Apple A-series processors. Since 2019, he has been with
the School of Integrated Circuits, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, where
he is currently an Associate Professor. He has authored or coauthored more
than 120 IEEE journal articles and conference papers. His research interests
include RF, mm-wave, terahertz, and mixed-signal integrated circuits and
systems for wireless communications, radars, and imaging systems.
Dr. Deng is a Technical Program Committee (TPC) Member of IEEE
International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), the IEEE Symposium
on VLSI Technology and Circuits (VLSI), the Custom Integrated Circuits
Conference (CICC), and the IEEE European Solid-State Circuits Confer-
ence (ESSCIRC). He was a recipient of several national and international
awards, including the China Youth Science and Technology Innovation
Award, the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Predoctoral Achieve-
ment Award, the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed
(nongovernment-sponsored) Students Abroad, the Tejima Research Award,
and the IEEE/ACM ASP-DAC Best Design Award. He has been an Associate
Editor of the IEEE S OLID -S TATE C IRCUITS L ETTERS (SSC-L).
Haikun Jia (Member, IEEE) received the B.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in electronics engineering from
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2009 and
2015, respectively.
He is currently an Assistant Professor with the
School of Integrated Circuits, Tsinghua Univer-
sity. His research interests are in the field of
millimeter-wave and high-speed circuit and system
design, including power amplifier (PA), voltage-
controlled oscillator (VCO), and frequency modu-
lated continuous wave (FMCW) radar.
Rui Wu (Member, IEEE) received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees from the University of Electronic Sci-
ence and Technology of China, Chengdu, China, in
2006 and 2009, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo,
Japan, in 2015.
From 2015 to 2018, he was a Post-Doctoral
Researcher with the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Since 2018, he has been a Full Professor with the
National Key Laboratory of Microwave Imaging
Technology, Aerospace Information Research Insti-
tute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. His current research
interests include radio frequency (RF)/millimeter-wave transceivers for radar
and high data rate wireless communications.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

SUN et al.: WIDE TUNING RANGE DUAL-CORE QUAD-MODE ORTHOGONAL-COUPLED VCO 15

Chenggang Li received the B.S. degree in electronic
engineering from the School of Microelectronics,
Xidian University, Xi’an, China, in 2018, and the
M.S. degree in electronic engineering from the
School of Integrated Circuits, Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, in 2021.
He is currently working on analog circuit design
at Huawei Company, Beijing. His research interests
include analog-to-digital converters with high preci-
sion and speed.
millimeter-wave (MMW) integrated circuits design, advanced packaging, and
3-D integrated circuits.
Zhiming Chen received the B.Eng. degree in elec-
tronic science and technology from Tsinghua Uni-
versity, Beijing, China, in 2007, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical and computer engineering from the
University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA,
in 2012.
In spring 2012, he joined the Beijing Institute of
Technology, Beijing, as a Faculty Member, where
he is currently a Professor with the School of
Integrated Circuits and Electronics. His research
interests include analog, radio frequency (RF), and

Zhihua Wang (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.S.,

M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering
from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1983,
1985, and 1990, respectively.
Since 1997, he has been a Full Professor with
Tsinghua University. From 1992 to 1993, he was
a Visiting Scholar with Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU), Pittsburgh, PA. He was a Visiting Profes-
sor with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU
Leuven), Leuven, Belgium, from 1993 to 1994.
Since 2000, he has been the Deputy Director of the
Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University. From September 2014 to
March 2015, he was a Visiting Professor with The Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong. He has coauthored 13
books/chapters, over 225 (569) articles in international journals (conferences),
and over 251 (29) articles in Chinese journals (conferences). He holds 130
Chinese and ten U.S. patents. His research mainly focuses on complementary
metal-oxide-semiconductor radio frequency integrated circuit (CMOS RFIC)
and biomedical applications, involving radio frequency identification (RFID),
phase-locked loop (PLL), low-power wireless transceivers, and smart clinic
equipment combined with leading-edge RFIC and digital image processing
techniques.
Dr. Wang was an AdCom Member of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society
(SSCS) from 2016 to 2019. He was a Technology Program Committee
Member of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) Baoyong Chi (Senior Member, IEEE) received the
from 2005 to 2011. Since 2005, he has been a Steering Committee Member B.S. degree in microelectronics from Peking Univer-
of the IEEE Asian Solid-State Circuit Conference (A-SSCC). He has served sity, Beijing, China, in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree
as the Chairperson of the IEEE SSCS Beijing Chapter from 1999 to 2009. from Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 2003.
He was the Technical Program Chair of A-SSCC 2013. He was a Guest From 2006 to 2007, he was a Visiting Assis-
Editor of IEEE J OURNAL OF S OLID -S TATE C IRCUITS (JSSC) Special Issue tant Professor with Stanford University, Stanford,
in December 2006, December 2009, and November 2014. From 2019 to 2020, CA, USA. He is currently a Full Professor and
he was an Associate-Editor-in-Chief of IEEE O PEN J OURNAL OF C IRCUITS the Deputy Director of the School of Integrated
AND S YSTEMS . He was an Associate Editor of IEEE T RANSACTIONS Circuits, Tsinghua University. He has authored over
ON C IRCUITS AND S YSTEMS I: R EGULAR PAPERS from 2016 to 2019, 140 academic articles and two books. He holds
IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON C IRCUITS AND S YSTEMS II: E XPRESS B RIEFS more than 20 patents. His current research interests
from 2010 to 2013, and IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON B IOMEDICAL C IRCUITS include radio frequency (RF)/millimeter-wave integrated circuit design, analog
AND S YSTEMS (BioCAS) from 2008 to 2015, and other administrative/expert integrated circuit design, and monolithic wireless transceiver chips for radar
committee positions in China’s national science and technology projects. From and communication.
2018 to 2019, he was an IEEE SSCS Distinguished Lecturer. Since 2020, Dr. Chi has been a TPC Member of Asian Solid-State Circuit Conference
he has been an IEEE CASS Distinguished Lecturer. (A-SSCC) since 2005.

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