A high-speed multimodulus HBT prescaler for frequency synthesizer applications

Author

Sheng, N.H. ; Pierson, R.L. ; Wang, K.C. ; Nubling, R.B. ; Asbeck, P.M. ; Chang, M.-C.F. ; Edwards, W.L. ; Philips, D.E.

Author_Institution

Rockwell Int. Sci. Center, Thousand Oaks, CA, USA

Volume

26

Issue

10

fYear

1991

fDate

10/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1362

Lastpage

1367

Abstract

A high-speed variable modulus prescaler that divides the input clock frequency by 128 up to 255 with unit step increment has been implemented with heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. A maximum operating frequency of 9.72 GHz with power consumption of 650 mW has been measured. The high-speed performance is attributed to the circuit design, which minimizes the critical path delay, and the intrinsic high-speed characteristics of HBT technology. The phase noise of the prescaler is important for frequency synthesizer applications. With 6.24-GHz input frequency, the phase noise was -110 dBc/Hz at 100-Hz offset frequency and -120 dBc at 1-kHz offset frequency. The noise floor decreases as the input frequency decreases. Phase noises of -125 dBc/Hz at 100-Hz offset and -135 dBc/Hz at 1-kHz offset were obtained for a 1.2-GHz input frequency

Keywords

bipolar integrated circuits; frequency dividers; frequency synthesizers; heterojunction bipolar transistors; 650 mW; 9.72 GHz; critical path delay; frequency synthesizer applications; input clock frequency; maximum operating frequency; multimodulus HBT prescaler; noise floor; offset frequency; phase noise; power consumption; Circuit synthesis; Clocks; Delay; Energy consumption; Frequency conversion; Frequency measurement; Frequency synthesizers; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Phase noise; Power measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.90086

Filename

90086