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A current mismatch compensation structure for SSPLL charge pump (CP) is proposed and implemented in a low-power 40.5GHz frequency synthesizer. Transistor’s channel-length-modulation (CLM) effect induces SSPLL loop gain distortion and decreases VCO control voltage (Vctrl) locking range (LR). The proposed compensated CP uses feedback loops to cancel the CLM effect and hence extends Vctrl LR from 0.50V to 0.75V under a 1V supply, without degrading SSPLL noise performance. As a result of the more efficient use of Vctrl range, VCO capacitor bank setup number is reduced from 10 to 7 to cover the same 10% total tuning range. Due to the low-power dividerless structure with sub-sampling lock detector (SSLD) for frequency acquisition, the SSPLL with the proposed compensated CP consumes only 9.5mW power with 192fs RMS jitter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new two-element phase-locked loop (PLL)-coupled array for the implementation of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) and subterahertz (sub-THz) phased arrays is presented. This architecture avoids using lossy phase shifter to create the required phase shift between the adjacent elements in a phased-array system. The required phase shift is generated by utilizing a dual nested loop PLL. The two PLL loops work together to stabilize the frequency and create the required phase shift. Moreover, it can be scaled simply by adding more unit cells to the architecture. A 112–121-GHz two-element phased array is designed and fabricated in a standard 65-nm CMOS process. It consumes 147-mW power and provides a phase shift of 46.7° ranging from 58.53° to 105.2° at 117 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An 8.8-mW, low-noise, 40.5-GHz frequency synthesizer is proposed. The synthesizer system consists of a subsampling phase-locked loop (SSPLL) with 100-MHz crystal reference, a 900-MHz high-frequency-reference (HFR) PLL, and a novel subsampling lock detector (SSLD). The SSLD keeps monitoring the locking status of the SSPLL by sampling the SSPLL output with the HFR 900-MHz reference and automatically controls the SSPLL for frequency acquisition if it loses lock or locks to a wrong 100-MHz harmonic. This is done without using a power-consuming divider-based frequency-locked loop in conventional SSPLL. Due to the relatively low-frequency operation and moderate noise requirement of HFR, as well as the low-power SSLD, the proposed system achieves low power consumption and jitter simultaneously. The measured results show 8.8-mW power consumption and 228-fs rms jitter with in-band and out-band phase noises of −96.6 dBc/Hz at a 1-MHz offset and −106.9 dBc/Hz at a 10-MHz offset, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]