A Low-Power and Wide-Locking-Range Injection-Locked Frequency Divider by Three with Dual-Injection Divide-by-Two Technique

A novel low-power and wide-locking-range divide-by-three injection-locked frequency divider with single inductor is presented in this paper. The classical topology with divide-by-two locking scheme is improved via the introduction of an extra tail-injection driven by the central node of the floating-source direct injector. This new concept is applied to the design of a 15GHz divider-by-three in a standard 65-nm LP CMOS technology, which reaches, in post-layout simulations at 100° C temperature, a 23.6% locking range at an input power of 0dBm and DC power consumption of 1.56mW. The divider figure of merit together with the compact size of only 0.09mm
²
are best in class for injection-locking dividers with single inductor and same input power. The figure of merit is also very close to the values reached by the best injection-locking dividers-by-three, that, however, use more inductors.