A mixed signal frequency synthesiser for configurable communication systems

This paper describes the development and characterisation of a wideband frequency synthesiser. The synthesiser is a development of a design originally described in a US patent filed in 1975. The problems with the original design are discussed and alternative approaches are presented that overcome the limitations of the technology originally available in the 1970s so as to resolve such issues such as clock contention, which were not addressed at that time. The objectives of the research described herein are the development of a wide band frequency synthesiser, the simulation of the synthesiser at frequencies compatible with those of interest to research collaborators, and the estimation of the power consumption of the overall design. The work undertaken is part of Project MuMoR, an IST Framework V funded project, an objective of the project being the development of flexible mixed signal architectures relating to configurable communication systems. The paper describes the approach to frequency synthesis adopted in the research. It concludes that the frequency synthesis technique offers the possibility of synthesising an exceptionally wide band of target frequencies whilst automatically switching the VCO´s tuning bands.