A Comparative Study of Millimeter Wave Frequency Synthesizer Techniques

There are three main configurations for high-performance frequency synthesizers in millimeter waves i.e., traditional phase-locked synthesizer, harmonically-injected phase-locked loop synthesizer, and frequency-multiplication-based frequency synthesizer. In this work, we conduct a comparative analysis and simulation of these three configurations. The comparison is made in terms of phase-noise performance, tuning step resolution, frequency switching speed, maximum power, maximum frequency range, level of unwanted signals, and cost. Based on the results, the best configuration can be selected according to the needed requirements.