Wide-Locking Range Divide-by-3 Injection-Locked Frequency Divider Using Sixth-Order RLC Resonator

• Published in: IEEE transactions on very large scale integration (VLSI) systems Vol. 24; no. 7; pp. 2598 - 2602
• Main Authors: Jang, Sheng-Lyang, Cheng, Wei-Chung, Hsue, Ching-Wen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.07.2016
• Subjects: Bias; Capacitance; CMOS; divide-by-3 injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD); Frequency dividers; Locking; locking range; Mixers; MOSFETs; Oscillators; Power consumption; Q-factor; Resistors; Resonant frequency; Resonators; sixth-order RLC resonator; Very large scale integration; locking range; CMOS; divide-by-3 injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD); sixth-order RLC resonator
• ISSN: 1063-8210; 1557-9999
• DOI: 10.1109/TVLSI.2015.2509254

A wide-locking range divide-by-3 LC injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) is proposed and implemented in the TSMC 0.18-μm 1P6M CMOS process. The divide-by-3 ILFD uses a cross-coupled nMOS pair, an injection MOSFET pair, and a sixth-order RLC resonator. The divide-by-3 ILFD has three oscillation frequency bands and three locking ranges. At the drain-source bias V DD of 0.9 V and at the incident power of 0 dBm, by switching a varactor bias, the high-band, middle-band, and low-band locking ranges of the ILFD are, respectively, given by 3.47 GHz (33.87%) from 8.51 to 11.98 GHz, 3.72 GHz (54.86%) from 4.92 to 8.64 GHz, and 1.05 GHz (19.76%) from 4.88 to 5.93 GHz. The operation range is 7.1 GHz (84.2%) from 4.88 to 11.98 GHz. The ILFD-core power consumption is 6.759 mW. A wider locking range of 4.43 GHz (67.07%) from 4.39 to 8.82 GHz is obtained by overlapping the three locking ranges at a fixed bias condition. The die area is 0.991 × 1.04 mm 2 .