Fully integrated frequency and phase generation for a 6–18GHz tunable multi-band phased-array receiver in CMOS

Fully integrated frequency-phase generators for a 6-18 GHz wide-band phased-array receiver element are presented that generate 5-7 GHz and 9-12 GHz first LO signals with less than -95 dBc/Hz phase noise at 100 kHz offset. Second LO signals with digitally controllable four-quadrant phase- and amplitude spread with better than 3deg resolution are generated and allow removal of systematic reference clock skew as well as accurate selection of the received signal phase. This frequency- and phase generation scheme was successfully demonstrated in a 6-18 GHz receiver system configured as an electrical 4-element array.