Divide-by-3 injection-locked frequency dividers using dual-resonance resonator

Abstract

This paper exploits the application of dual-resonance LC resonator in the design of wide-locking-range injection-locked frequency dividers (ILFDs). The tail-injection and direct-injection divide-by-3 ILFD circuits in a standard CMOS process are realized with a pair of cross-coupled nMOSFETs with a dual-resonance LC-resonator. The locking range enhancement techniques such as linear mixer and quality-factor degradation are used to design wide-locking range divide-by-3 ILFD. At the incident power of 0 dBm the locking range of the divide-by-3 ILFD is 4.6 GHz (43.3 %), from the incident frequency 8.3 to 12.9 GHz.