A Low Phase Noise Quadrature Injection Locked Frequency Synthesizer for MM-Wave Applications

This paper proposes a 60 GHz quadrature PLL frequency synthesizer for the IEEE802.15.3c with wide tuning range and low phase noise. The synthesizer is constructed using a 20 GHz PLL that is coupled with a Quadrature Injection Locked Oscillator (QILO) as a frequency tripler to generate the 60 GHz signal. The 20 GHz PLL generates a signal with a phase noise that is lower than -105 dBc/Hz using tail feedback to improve the phase noise while having a 17% tuning range. The proposed 60 GHz QILO uses a combination of parallel and tail injection to enhance the locking range by improving the QILO injection efficiency at the moment of injection and has a 12% tuning range. Both the 20 GHz PLL and the QILO were fabricated as separate chips using a 65 nm CMOS process and measurement results show a phase noise that is less than -95 dBc/Hz@ 1 MHz at 60 GHz while consuming 80 mW from a 1.2 V supply. To the author's knowledge this phase noise is about 20 dB better than recently reported QPLLs and about 10 dB compared to differential PLLs operating at a similar frequency and at a similar offset.