A Reconfigurable Injection-Locked LO Generator With a Wideband-Harmonic-Shaping Class-F23 VCO for Multibands 5G mm-Wave

A reconfigurable injection-locked local oscillator (RE-ILO) generator that leverages a multitanks wideband-harmonic-shaping Class-F23 voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), a RE injection-locked frequency multiplier (RE-ILFM), and a power-efficient injection-locked frequency amplifier (ILFA) for multiple fifth-generation (5G) millimeter-wave (mm-wave) bands is hereby presented. For the VCO, an inductive multiplier inside the positive feedback loop boosts the drain-to-gate voltage gain (Av). Besides, a source-inductive loaded on the output buffer, coupled with a separated inductor, is feedback to the drain of the cross-coupled transistors to expand the impedance peak at the 3rd harmonic for a small fluctuation of 1/<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f^{3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> phase noise (PN) corner over the entire tuning range (TR). The measured results of the VCO prototype in 55-nm CMOS achieved the VCO measures a TR of 10.65–14.37 GHz, i.e., 29.74%. The FOM<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$_{T}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is 192.2 dBc/Hz and the 1/<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f^{3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> PN corner is 380 ± 100 kHz. Additionally, a RE-ILFM with both frequency <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times 2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> doubler mode (DM) and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times 3$ </tex-math></inline-formula> tripler mode (TM) is introduced to expand the operation band of the VCO. The ILFA is cascaded for harmonic rejection and power improvement. The proposed RE-ILO generator achieves a frequency TR from 22.25 to 28.61 GHz, i.e., 25% and 35.9–42.04 GHz, i.e., 15.75% with a 1-MHz-offset PN from −102.78 to −104.1 dBc/Hz at DM, −98.48 to −100.67 dBc/Hz at TM, and consumes 66 mW power with an output power of 1.3 dBm.

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