Desing and fabrication of GaAs prescalar IC for frequency synthesizers

주파수 합성기용 GaAs prescalar IC 설계 및 제작

A 128/129 dual-modulus prescalar IC is designed for application to frequency synthesizers in high frequency communication systems. The FET logic used in this design is SCFL(Source Coupled FET Logic), employing depletion-mode 1.mu.m gate length GaAs MESFETs with the threshold voltage of -1.5V. This circuit consists of 8 flip-flops, 3 OR gates, 2 NOR gates, a modulus control buffer and I/O buffers, which are integrated with about 440 GaAs MESFETs on dimensions of 1.8mm. For $V_{DD}$ and $V_{SS}$ power supply voltages 5V and -3.3V Commonly used in TTL and ECL circuits are determined, respectively. The simulation results taking into account the threshold voltage variation of .+-.0.2V and the power supply variation of .+-.1V demonstrate that the designed prescalar can operate up to 2GHz. This prescalar is fabricated using the ETRI MMIC foundary process and the measured maximum operating frquency is 621MHz.