A 22.2-GHz Injection-Locked Frequency Tripler Featuring Dual Injection and 39.4% Locking Range

This article proposes a dual injection locking technique to significantly enhance the locking range (LR) of the injection-locked frequency tripler (ILFT). Compared with the conventional circuit topology that typically suffers from limited LR due to G_{m} degeneration, the proposed technique employs drain injection and source injection together to increase the LR, with power consumption increased only a little. Fabricated in standard CMOS 65-nm technology, the ILFT prototype measures a 39.4% LR at 0-dBm input power while consuming 8.16 mW from a 1-V supply. The chip area is 0.32 mm 2 including the pads. The proposed ILFT is applicable for local oscillation generation in the 5G transceiver.