A wideband, low-power, high-sensitivity and small-size 2.5-GHz static frequency divider IC

A static divide-by-four frequency prescalar IC operating for input signals from 20 MHz to 5.5 GHz is presented. The circuit was fabricated using Avantek´s f_T=12 GHz f_max=20 GHz non-polysilicon-emitter ISOSAT-I silicon bipolar process. The die fits in a standard microwave transistor package due to its small size and single-bias-supply requirement. An integrated input buffer was provided to obtain high sensitivity and to avoid self-oscillation in the absence of an input signal. This work presents an example of a medium-scale-integration silicon bipolar IC operating at GHz frequencies (or Gbit/s rates)