• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2002

This paper presents a 18-mW, 2.5-㎓ fractional-N frequency synthesizer with l-bit $4^{th}$-order interpolative delta-sigma ($\Delta{\;}$\sum$)modulator to suppress fractional spurious tones while reducing in-band phase noise. A fractional-N frequency synthesizer with a quadruple prescaler has been designed and implemented in a $0.5-\mu\textrm{m}$ 15-GHz $f_t$ BiCMOS. Synthesizing 2.1 GHzwith less than 200 Hz resolution, it exhibits an in-band phase noise of less than -85 dBc/Hz at 1 KHz offset frequency with a reference spur of -85 dBc and no fractional spurs. The synthesizer also shows phase noise of -139 dBc/Hz at an offset frequency of 1.2 MHz from a 2.1GHz center frequency.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.3 no.1 s.4
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• pp.39-49
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• 1999

This paper describes a 1 GHz, low-phase-noise CMOS fractional-N frequency synthesizer with an integrated LC VCO. The proposed frequency synthesizer, which uses a high-order delta-sigma modulator to suppress the fractional spurious tones at all multiples of the fractional frequency resolution offset, has 64 programmable frequency channels with frequency resolution of $f_ref/64$. The measured phase noise is as low as -110 dBc/Hz at a 200 KHz offset frequency from a carrier frequency of 980 MHz. The reference sideband spurs are -73.5 dBc. The prototype is implemented in a $0.5{\mu}m$ CMOS process with triple metal layers. The active chip area is about $4mm^2$ and the prototype consumes 43 mW, including the VCO buffer power consumption, from a 3.3 V supply voltage.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.534-542
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• 2017

This paper presents a fast locking technique for a fractional-N PLL frequency synthesizer. The technique directly measures $K_{VCO}$ on a chip, computes the VCO's target tuning voltage for a given target frequency, and directly sets the loop filter voltage to the target voltage before the PLL begins the normal closed-loop locking process. The closed-loop lock time is significantly minimized because the initial frequency of the VCO are put very close to the desired final target value. The proposed technique is realized and designed for a 4.3-5.3 GHz fractional-N synthesizer in 65 nm CMOS and successfully verified through extensive simulations. The lock time is less than $12.8{\mu}s$ over the entire tuning range. Simulation verifications demonstrate that the proposed method is very effective in reducing the synthesizer lock time.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2003.11c
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• pp.890-893
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• 2003

In this paper, we have designed the fractional-N frequency synthesizer for bluetooth system using 0.35-um CMOS technology and 3.3-V single power supply. The designed synthesizer consist of phase-frequency detector (PFD), charge pump, loop filter, voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), frequency divider, and sigma-delta modulator. A dead zone free PFD is used and a modified charge pump having active cascode transistors is used. A Multi-modulus prescaler having CML D flip-flop is used and VCO having a tuning range from 746 MHz to 2.632 GHz at 3.3 V power supply is used. Total power dissipation is 32 mW and phase noise is -118 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.267-273
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• 2007

A fractional-N frequency synthesizer supports quadruple bands and multiple standards for mobile broadcasting systems. A novel linearized coarse tuned VCO adopting a pseudo-exponential capacitor bank structure is proposed to cover the wide bandwidth of 65%. The proposed technique successfully reduces the variations of KVCO and per-code frequency step by 3.2 and 2.7 times, respectively. For the divider and prescaler circuits, TSPC (true single-phase clock) logic is extensively utilized for high speed operation, low power consumption, and small silicon area. Implemented in $0.18-{\mu}m$ CMOS, the PLL covers $154{\sim}303$ MHz (VHF-III), $462{\sim}911$ MHz (UHF), and $1441{\sim}1887$ MHz (L1, L2) with two VCO's while dissipating 23 mA from 1.8 V supply. The integrated phase noise is 0.598 and 0.812 degree for the integer-N and fractional-N modes, respectively, at 750 MHz output frequency. The in-band noise at 10 kHz offset is -96 dBc/Hz for the integer-N mode and degraded only by 3 dB for the fractional-N mode.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.941-947
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• 2017

This paper reports a fractional-N phase-locked-loop(PLL) frequency synthesizer that is implemented in a $0.35-{\mu}m$ standard CMOS process and generates a quadrature signal for an FRS terminal. The synthesizer consists of a voltage-controlled oscillator(VCO), a charge pump(CP), loop filter(LF), a phase frequency detector(PFD), and a frequency divider. The VCO has been designed with an LC resonant circuit to provide better phase noise and power characteristics, and the CP is designed to be able to adjust the pumping current according to the PFD output. The frequency divider has been designed by a 16-divider pre-scaler and fractional-N divider based on the third delta-sigma modulator($3^{rd}$ DSM). The LF is a third-order RC filter. The measured results show that the proposed device has a dynamic frequency range of 460~510 MHz and -3.86 dBm radio-frequency output power. The phase noise of the output signal is -94.8 dBc/Hz, and the lock-in time is $300{\mu}s$.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.42 no.7 s.337
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• pp.35-40
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• 2005

This paper proposes a fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer using the 3rd order ${\Delta}{\sum}$ modulator for 900MHz medium speed wireless link. The LC voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is used for the good phase noise property. To reduce the lock-in time, a charge pump has been developed to control the pumping current according to the frequency steps and the reference frequency is increased up to 3MHz. A 36/37 fractional-N divider is used to increase the reference frequency of the phase frequency detector (PFD) and to reduce the minimum frequency step simultaneously. A 3rd order ${\Delta}{\sum}$ modulator has been developed to reduce the fractional spur VCO, Divider by 8 Prescaler, PFD and Charge pump have been developed with 0.25um CMOS, and the fractional-N divider and the third order ${\Delta}{\sum}$ modulator have been designed with the VHDL code, and they are implemented through the FPGA board of the Xilinx Spartan2E. The measured results show that the output power of the PLL is about -lldBm and the phase noise is -77.75dBc/Hz at 100kHz offset frequency. The minimum frequency step and the maximum lock-in time are 10kHz and around 800us for the maximum frequency change of 10MHz, respectively.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.519-520
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a voltage-controlled ring oscillator (VCO) for a 900 MHz low-noise fractional-N frequency synthesizer. The VCO delay cell is based on an nMOS source-coupled pair with load elements [1] and a combined tail current sources which consist of a large and a small current source to control the integer and fractional behaviors, respectively. The Spectre simulation results of the scheme in a 0.18um CMOS process show the accurate control of the KVCO better than the conventional one.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.889-895
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• 2008

In this paper a Fractional-N frequency synthesizer is designed for UHF RFID readers. It satisfies the ISO/IEC frequency band($860{\sim}960MHz$) and is also applicable to mobile RFID readers. A VCO is designed to operate at 1.8GHz band such that the LO pulling effect is minimized. The 900MHz differential I/Q LO signals are obtained by dividing the differential signal from an integrated 1.8GHz VCO. It is designed using a $0.18{\mu}m$ RF CMOS process. The measured results show that the designed circuit has a phase noise of -103dBc/Hz at 100KHz offset and consumes 9mA from a 1.8V supply. The channel switching time of $10{\mu}s$ over 5MHz transition have been achieved, and the chip size including PADs is $1.8{\times}0.99mm^2$.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.179-192
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• 2008

A multiphase compensation method with mismatch linearization technique, is presented and demonstrated in a $\Sigma-\Delta$ fractional-N frequency synthesizer. An on-chip delay-locked loop (DLL) and a proposed delay line structure are constructed to provide multiphase compensation on $\Sigma-\Delta$ quantizetion noise. In the delay line structure, dynamic element matching (DEM) techniques are employed for mismatch linearization. The proposed $\Sigma-\Delta$ fractional-N frequency synthesizer is fabricated in a $0.18-{\mu}m$ CMOS technology with 2.14-GHz output frequency and 4-Hz resolution. The die size is 0.92 mm$\times$1.15 mm, and it consumes 27.2 mW. In-band phase noise of -82 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset and out-of-band phase noise of -103 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset are measured with a loop bandwidth of 200 kHz. The settling time is shorter than $25{\mu}s$.