CMOS low-power microwave frequency prescalers for wireless applications

Future consumer market communication systems are expected to operate at higher frequencies due to congestion within old frequency band allocations. Also advances in CMOS technology make it possible that RF circuits could be implemented in this low-power and inexpensive technology. In this paper we present dual-modulus prescalers in 1.2 /spl mu/m CMOS and 0.8 /spl mu/m BiCMOS operating up to 1.4 GHz and 1.26 GHz respectively.