A 1.5 GHz, sub-2 mW CMOS dual-modulus prescaler

A 16/17 dual-modulus prescaler based on an improved phase switching architecture has been designed. It will be shown that moving the switching operation one stage closer to the input signal not only saves a significant amount of power, but also results in a more robust dual-modulus prescaler that, further, has a greatly reduced susceptibility to noise and spurious tones. With a 2.7 V power supply, measurements show that the prescaler draws less than 700 /spl mu/A while running at 1.5 GHz.