Tuning-Less Injection-Locked Frequency Dividers with Wide Locking Range Utilizing 8th-Order Transformer-Based Resonator

Abstract

This paper presents two tuning-less ultra-wide locking range (LR) injection-locked frequency dividers (ILFD). By utilizing an 8 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> -order transformer-based resonator, the LR can be improved significantly. Also, an inductive gain peaking technique is adopted to ensure start-up condition and achieve low power consumption. Two chips are fabricated in 40nm CMOS technology. The first chip exhibits a best-in-class LR of 104.5% from 28.8 to 91.9 GHz while consuming 5.8mW with a 0.9V power supply. The second chip achieves the best figure of merit (FoM) up to 26.6GHz/mW and 79.6% from 31 to 72 GHz LR with a 0.5V power supply.