Fast CMOS nonbinary divider and counter

A new kind of nonbinary CMOS divider and counter is presented. The divider directly gives a nonbinary dividing ratio without any decoder and, therefore, no speed degradation. They can be directly cascaded to form a nonbinary ripple chain and can be programmable. The principle is particularly useful for a nonbinary prescaler. A synchronous nonbinary counter using this principle is also presented. Simulations show that, in a 1.0 mu m CMOS process, the nonbinary divider and its ripple chain can work up to 1.2 GHz.