An Ultra-Low Power and Compact <i>LC</i>-Tank-Based Frequency Tripler Using Pulsed Input Signals

Abstract

This letter presents a low power and compact area LC-tank-based frequency multiplier. In the proposed architecture, the input signals have a pulsed waveform that involves many high-order harmonics. Using an LC-tank that amplifies only the target harmonic component, while suppressing others, the output signal at the target frequency can be obtained. Since the core current flows for a very short duration, due to the pulsed input signals, the average power consumption can be dramatically reduced. Effective removal of spurious tones due to the damping of the signal is achieved using a limiting amplifier. In this work, a prototype frequency tripler using the proposed architecture was designed in a 65 nm CMOS process. The power consumption was 950 mu W, and the active area was 0.08 mm(2). At a 3.12 GHz frequency, the phase noise degradation with respect to the theoretical bound was less than 0.5 dB.