Digital techniques for integrated frequency synthesizers: A tutorial

Frequency synthesizers are essential components of modern, integrated wireless transceivers. Traditional analog and mixed-signal circuit design techniques are proving ineffective in achieving the challenging performance demands placed on these synthesizers, particularly in very fine fabrication technologies. Digital-intensive architectures and related digital signal processing techniques offer a robust, scalable alternative. A tutorial of the basic problems with frequency synthesizers, and a slew of recent digital techniques devoted to improving their performance, is presented.