Circuit layout for fully monolithic VCO

The advent of multimedia appliances and other smart devices in the home has stimulated demand for convenient ways to keep in touch with them. Until recently, local area network methods such as Ethernet and Token Ring provided the solution, but their need for wiring reduces the mobility of users.

Wireless is the answer
The obvious alternative for keeping in touch with local networks is wireless technology. A research team at IBM has recently demonstrated a series of advances in error-free wireless transmission of data that promises to bring widespread uses of wireless communication closer. In one startling advance, the team has achieved speeds up to 38 megabits per second under laboratory conditions. That level of performance, comparable to that in corporate wired data links, could transmit full-motion video.

Because the radio spectrum is crowded, the growing popularity of indoor wireless communications is stimulating technical interest in new spectral regions, especially those that can accommodate high data rates. The IBM Research group has recently developed fully monolithic voltage-controlled  oscillators (VCO), which are major components of wireless systems that operate in two of the new high frequency bands.

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