Fast Switching, High Performance PLL And Quadband VCO Frequency Synthesizer

Phase locked-loop (PLL) frequency generation circuits are ubiquitous across multiple industries and applications including basic FM broadcast band receivers, digital communications, aerospace, instrumentation, RADAR, and electronic warfare.

PLLs are used to generate radio frequency (RF) and intermediate frequency (IF) signals from less than 1MHz to tens of GHz and higher. Application requirements vary widely, and PLL design and optimization involves trading off parameters such as power consumption, phase noise, frequency tuning range, frequency resolution, and lock time.

An important design tradeoff that must be considered that often results in undesirable performance compromises is that of frequency range versus phase noise performance. Download the application note to learn more.