Low-power and low-noise programmable frequency dividers in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology

Abstract

Two programmable frequency dividers for fractional-N frequency synthesizers are presented. The input frequency range is from 1 GHz to 10 GHz for both circuits, which were manufactured in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The first divider (divider1) has divisor values ranging from 32 to 127 and operates with a single supply voltage VCC between 2.2 V and 4 V, while the divisor value range for the second one (divider2) is from 32 to 63 and the supply voltage operational range is between 3.0 V and 3.6 V. The divider1 and divider2 draw 100 mA from a 2.5 V supply and 26 mA from a 3V supply, respectively. The dividers' phase noise contribution referred to the output of a 10 GHz PLL is lower than -108 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset and -116.5 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset. This makes the dividers suitable for low-noise fractional-N phase-locked loops using a conventional CMOS phase-frequency detector.