Abstract The pronounced phase noise issue in millimeter-wave (mm-wave) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) has motivated a wider loop bandwidth in integer- N phase-locked loops (PLLs). In this work, we introduce a quadrature-phase spurious-tone-canceling phase detector (QSC-PD) that decouples the inherent trade-off between PLL loop bandwidth and spurious tone suppression. By incorporating an auxiliary sampling phase detection path, the spurious signals produced by the primary path are effectively canceled without extra power overhead or compromising loop stability. Owing to its high gain, the QSC-PD reduces its own jitter contribution within the loop bandwidth. Furthermore, the QSC-PD facilitates both frequency acquisition and VCO lock detection. Implemented in 0.13 μm SiGe bipolar CMOS technology, the mm-wave PLL attains a spurious tone of −84.5 dBc, a phase noise of −112 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset, and a minimum integrated jitter of 57.9 fs rms (1 kHz–300 MHz) at 15.6 GHz. The entire circuit consumes 39.6–44.5 mW.
Li et al. (Mon,) studied this question.