A 132-204 GHz Carrier Storage Frequency Divider with sub-50 Micro-Watt DC Power

This paper presents a frequency divider by utilizing the carrier storage property in silicon PIN diodes. PIN diodes undergo reverse recovery under a large-signal RF drive. The proposed design utilizes this property and drives the diode into reverse recovery once in two cycles of RF input in order to generate a divide-by-two output. The circuit consumes near zero DC power since the diode is reverse-biased during division operation. Implemented in GlobalFoundries 90nm SiGe BiCMOS process, the proposed divider has a division range spanning 132 GHz to 204 GHz for an input signal of <-1 dBm and consumes 42 μW DC power. Experimental results show minor phase noise degradation upon division. This is the first demonstration of a carrier storage PIN diode divider in silicon. This work performs frequency division at the highest input frequency among all reported silicon-based dividers.