VNA-Based Characterization of Frequency Multipliers Phase-Distortions Under Continuous-Wave and Modulated Signal Excitation

This paper proposes vector network analyzer (VNA)-based measurement techniques for complementary characterization of phase distortion in frequency multipliers under both continuous-wave (CW) and modulated signal excitation. Specifically, a nonlinear VNA-based technique that uses a combgenerator as a phase reference to measure phase distortion in frequency multipliers under CW excitation is presented. Additionally, a new correlation-based method is proposed for measuring phase distortion in frequency multipliers under modulation signal stimuli without resorting to a phase reference. These measurement techniques were applied to characterize the phase distortions exhibited by a 45-nm SOI CMOS stacked push-push frequency doubler operating around 60 GHz.