LC-tank Injection Locked Frequency Divider Research Articles

Injection-Locked Frequency Divider Using Injection Mixer DC-Biased in Sub-threshold

A wide locking range CMOS LC-tank injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) is proposed and it uses a pre-amplifier stage in series with a post-injection mixer. The injection signal is fed to a pre-amplifier to enhance the injection signal at the post-mixer gate in the divide-by-2 ILFD. The gate of mixer is biased in sub-threshold to provide large output voltage. At the supply voltage of 0.85 V, tunable free-running low-frequency band from 3.23 to 3.59 GHz and high-band from 1.71 to 1.73 GHz are found. The low-/high-band locking range is (61.7%) from 2.8 to 5.3 GHz/(64.9%) from 5.1 $\sim$ 10.0 GHz.

Wide locking range divide-by-4 LC-tank injection-locked frequency divider using series-mixers

A novel wide locking range divide-by-4 injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) is proposed in this paper and was implemented in the TSMC 0.18 μm 1P6 M CMOS process. The divide-by-4 ILFD uses a cross-coupled voltage-controlled oscillator with a parallel-tuned LC resonator and two mixers in series to serve as an injection device. At the drain-source bias of 0.8 V and at the incident power of 0 dBm, the locking range of the divide-by-4 is 1.7 GHz, from the incident frequency 10.3---12.0 GHz, and the percentage of locking range is 15.25 %. The core power consumption is 11.98 mW. At drain-source voltage of 0.9 V, the locking range of the divide-by-4 is 2 GHz, from the incident frequency 10.1---12.1 GHz, and the percentage is 18.0 %. At drain-source voltage of 1.0 V, the locking range is 2.2 GHz (20.0 %) from 9.9 to 12.1 GHz. The die area is 0.492 × 0.819 mm2.

A low-voltage, low power divide-by-4 LC-tank injection-locked frequency divider

A low-voltage wide locking range injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) using a standard 0.18 µm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process is presented. The ILFD is based on a differential LC VCO with one injection metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) for coupling external signals to the resonator. The low-voltage operation and wide locking range is obtained by boosting the gate voltage swing of the ILFD. Measurements show that at the supply voltage of 0.67 V, the divider's free-running frequency is tunable from 3.91 to 4.22 GHz, and the core power consumption is 1.87 mW. At the incident power of 0 dBm the divide-by-4 operation range is about 2 GHz (12.3%), from the incident frequency 15.3–17.3 GHz. The divide-by-2 locking range is about 5.1 GHz (77%), from the incident frequency 4.1–9.2 GHz.

Tail-injected divide-by-4 quadrature injection locked frequency divider

This article presents a divide-by-4 quadrature injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) employing tunable active inductors (TAIs), which are used to extend the locking range and to reduce die area. The CMOS ILFD is based on a quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (QVCO) with NMOS cross-coupled switching pairs, two tail MOSFETs and TAI-C tanks, and was fabricated in the 0.35 μm 2P4M CMOS technology. The divide-by-4 LC-tank ILFD is performed by injecting an external signal to the common gate of tail MOSFETs of two coupled VCOs. Measurement results show that at the supply voltage of 2.3 V, the divider free-running frequency is tunable from 0.36 to 1.51 GHz, and at the incident power of 0 dBm the locking range is about 4.6 GHz, from the incident frequency 1.44–6.04 GHz. The core power consumption is 29.37 mW. The die area is 0.976 × 0.812 mm2.

Multi-Modulus LC Injection-Locked Frequency Dividers Using Single-Ended Injection

A new wide-locking range multi-modulus LC-tank injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) is proposed and was fabricated in a 0.18 mum CMOS process. The ILFD circuit is realized with a complementary MOS LC-tank oscillator and an injection composite composed of an inductor in series with an injection MOS. The two output terminals of the injection composite are connected to the resonator outputs. The ILFD can be used as a first-harmonic oscillator (ILO), even-modulo or odd-modulo oscillator depending upon the incident frequency of injection signal. At the supply voltage of 1.5 V, the free-running frequency is from 4.85 to 5.13 GHz, the current and power consumption of the divider without buffers are 2.78 and 4.17 mW, respectively. At the incident power of 0 dBm, the locking range in the divide-by-1(2, 3, 4) mode is from the incident frequency 3.72 to 8.69 (8.42 to 10.95, 13.66 to 16.03, 19.13 to 20.5) GHz.

Dual-Band CMOS Injection-Locked Frequency Divider with Variable Division Ratio

A dual band 0.18µm CMOS LC-tank injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) is proposed. The ILFD circuit is realized with a cross-coupled pMOS LC-tank oscillator with an inductor switch for frequency band selection. The self-oscillating VCO is injection-locked by nth-harmonic input to obtain the division factor of n. The division ratio of 1, 2, and 3 has been found for the proposed ILFD. Measurement results show that at the supply voltage of 1.1V, the free-running frequency is from 2.28(3.09)GHz to 2.78(3.72)GHz for the low- (high-) frequency band. The power consumption of the ILFD core is 3.7mW (6.2mW) at low (high) band. The total area including the output buffer and the pads is 0.841 × 0.764mm2.

LC-Tank Colpitts Injection-Locked Frequency Divider With Record Locking Range

A new wide locking range injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) using a standard 0.18-mum CMOS process is presented. The ILFD is based on a differential voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) with two embedded injection metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) for coupling external signal to the resonators. The new VCO is composed of two single-ended VCOs coupled with cross-coupled MOSFETs and a transformer. Measurement results show that at the supply voltage of 1.5 V, the divider's free-running frequency is tunable from 5.85 to 6.17 GHz, and at the incident power of 0 dBm the locking range is about 7.1 GHz (65.4%), from the incident frequency 7.3 to 14.4 GHz. The ILFD has a record locking range percentage among published divide-by-2 .LC-tank ILFDs.

Colpitts Injection-Locked Frequency Divider Implemented With a 3-D Helical Transformer

This letter proposes a wide locking range and low power complementary Colpitts injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) employing a 3-D helical transformer. The proposed ILFD consists of two single-ended complementary Colpitts oscillators coupled by a 3-D transformer to form a differential oscillator. The aim of using the 3-D transformer is to reduce chip size. The divide-by-2 LC-tank ILFD is implemented by adding an injection nMOS between the differential outputs of the voltage controlled oscillator. The measurement results show that at the supply voltage of 1.8 V, the divider free-running frequency is tunable from 4.24 to 4.8 GHz. At the incident power of 0 dBm, vtune=0.9 V, and V DD=1.5 V, the locking range is about 2.4 GHz (26.9%), from the incident frequency 7.7 to 10.1 GHz. The core power consumption is 3.9 mW. The die area is 0.548times 0.656 mm2.

A Wide Locking Range Injection Locked Frequency Divider with Quadrature Outputs

This paper presents a quadrature injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) employing tunable active inductors (TAIs), which are used is to extend the locking range and to reduce die area. The CMOS ILFD is based on a new quadrature voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with cross-coupled switching pairs and TAI-C tanks, and was fabricated in the 0.18-μm 1P6M CMOS technology. The divide-by-2 LC-tank ILFD is performed by adding injection MOSFETs between the differential outputs of the VCO. Measurement results show that at the supply voltage of 1.8V, the divider free-running frequency is tunable from 1.34GHz to 3.07GHz, and at the incident power of 0dBm the locking range is about 6GHz (137%), from the incident frequency 1.37GHz to 7.38GHz. The core power consumption is 22.8mW. The die area is 0.63×0.55mm2.