A Low-Power K-Band Frequency Quintupler With Current-Reused and Harmonic-Enhanced Technique

This letter presents a low-power frequency quintupler fabricated through a TSMC 90 nm CMOS process. By forming a sub-harmonic mixer and a cross-coupled pair in a cascoded topology, the proposed circuit provided the five-time output frequency and consumed less dc power than a conventional circuit. The cross-coupled pair also enhanced the power level of the 4 × harmonics so that the quintupler obtained good conversion gain. The measured results revealed that the quintupler had a 3 db frequency range of 23.6 to 25.5 GHz and a maximum conversion gain of 2.2 dB at a low input power of -1 dBm. The dc power consumption in the quintupler core and the output buffer are 1.3 and 34 mW, respectively.