A new design methodology is proposed and analyzed for the design of ternary logic systems. In the new ternary logic systems, no conversions among radices are required and only the two-state ternary literals associated with the ternary signals are transmitted in the whole system. With the new design methodology, the ternary systems can be realized by the dynamic CMOS logic circuits which are simple and fully compatible with those of the conventional binary logic circuits in process, power supply, and logic levels. A new dynamic differential logic called the CMOS Redundant Differential Logic (CRDL) is also developed to increase the logic flexibility and the circuit performance. Using the new design methodology and the CRDL circuits, the multiplier with redundant binary addition tree is designed in both non-pipelined and pipelined systems. The experimental chip has been fabricated and measured, which successfully verifies the correctness of the logic functions and the speed performance of the designed circuits.

A low-power K-band CMOS current-mode up-conversion mixer is proposed. The proposed mixer is realized using four analog current-squaring circuits. This current-mode up-conversion mixer is fabricated in 0.13-µm 1P8M triple-well CMOS process, and has the measured power conversion gain of -5 dB. The fabricated CMOS up-conversion mixer dissipates only 3.1 mW from a 1-V supply voltage. The VCO can be tuned from 20.8 GHz to 22.7 GHz. Its phase noise is -108 dBc/Hz at 10-MHz offset frequency. It is shown that the proposed mixer has great potential for low-voltage and low-power CMOS transmitter front-ends in advanced nano-CMOS technologies.

A 0.8-V CMOS Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) has been designed and fabricated by using a 0.13-µm 1p8m CMOS process. In the proposed PLL, the double-positive-feedbacks voltage-controlled oscillator (DPF-VCO) is used to generate current signals for the coupling current-mode injection-locked frequency divider (CCMILFD) and current-injection current-mode logic (CICML) divider. A short-pulsed-reset phase frequency detector (SPR-PFD) with the reduced pulse width of reset signal to improve the linear range of the PFD and a complementary-type charge pump to eliminate the current path delay are also adopted in the proposed PLL. The measured in-band phase noise of the fabricated PLL is -98 dBc/Hz. The locking range of the PLL is from 22.6 GHz to 23.3 GHz and the reference spur level is -69 dBm that is 54 dB bellow the carrier. The power consumption is 9.2 mW under a 0.8-V power supply. The proposed PLL has the advantages of low phase noise, low reference spur, and low power dissipation at low voltage operation.

A direct-conversion receiver integrated with the CMOS subharmonic frequency tripler (SFT) for V-band applications is designed, fabricated and measured using 0.13-µm CMOS technology. The receiver consists of a low-noise amplifier, a down-conversion mixer, an output buffer, and an SFT. A fully differential SFT is introduced to relax the requirements on the design of the frequency synthesizer. Thus, the operational frequency of the frequency synthesizer in the proposed receiver is only 20 GHz. The fabricated receiver has a maximum conversion gain of 19.4 dB, a minimum single-side band noise figure of 10.2 dB, the input-referred 1-dB compression point of -20 dBm and the input third order inter-modulation intercept point of -8.3 dB. It draws only 15.8 mA from a 1.2-V power supply with a total chip area of 0.794 mm0.794 mm. As a result, it is feasible to apply the proposed receiver in low-power wireless transceiver in the V-band applications.