Nonlinearities in frequency dividers

Abstract

The effect of nonlinearities in injection-locked frequency dividers is investigated and it is shown that the presence of nonlinearities, such as in a CML DFF-based divider, results in a wider frequency locking range. A new divider topology is presented that exhibits both higher operating frequencies and similar wide-locking range compared to the conventional CML DFF-based topology. The chip was fabricated through Jazz Semiconductor 0.18-µm CMOS process.