A low power V-Band injection-locked frequency divider in 0.13-μm Si RFCMOS technology

In this work, a divide-by-2 injection locked frequency divider (ILFD) operating in the V-band with a low DC power consumption has been developed in a commercial 0.13-μm Si RFCMOS technology. The bias current path was separated from the injection signal path, which enabled a small supply voltage of 0.5V, leading to a DC power consumption of only 0.31mW. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the lowest power consumption reported for mm-wave ILFDs at the point of writing. All inductors and interconnection lines were designed based on EM (electromagnetic) simulator for precise prediction of circuit performance. With varactor tuning voltage ranged for 0-1.2V, the free-running oscillation frequency varied from 27.43 to 28.06 GHz. At 0 dBm input power, the frequency divider exhibited a locking range of 5.8 GHz from 53 to 58.8 GHz without external tuning mechanism. The fabricated circuit size is 0.72mm × 0.62mm including the RF and DC supply pads.