A 6mW, 115GHz CMOS injection-locked frequency doubler with differential output

Abstract

A millimeter-wave CMOS frequency multiplier by two (doubler) is reported. The circuit consists of a Pierce oscillator injection-locked by a push-push pair. Compared to traditional frequency multipliers, which exploit the non-linearity of active devices to produce harmonics of the input signal, this technique provides a differential output with balanced signals, low core power dissipation and large swing. A model of the circuit is proposed to derive a closed form expression for the frequency locking range. Prototypes of the frequency doubler have been realized in a 65nm CMOS technology, show an operation bandwidth from 106GHz to 128GHz, with 6mW core power dissipation. With 0dBm input power, the output peak voltage swing, is 330mV, at 115GHz.