An ultra-broadband, high resolution frequency synthesizer

This paper presents a detailed study on the design of a miniature, ultra-broadband, high-resolution, low-power consumption frequency synthesizer which employs both the direct and indirect frequency synthesis techniques. A high-resolution, fast frequency-switching DDS (direct digital synthesis) acts as the reference of a broad-band phase locked loop which is the key component of the frequency synthesizer. The theoretical resolution of the design is 128μHz and the bandwidth ranges from 137.5MHz to 4.4GHz. The supply voltage is 5V, corresponding to a total power consumption of 2W. The frequency synthesizer is described in detail and some analyses are made based on the experimental results.