really high frequency counter chip

[biff44]

does anyone know an off the shelf digital chip that can divide by 4, or 8, or maybe 16 with an input from 500 MHz to 30 GHz? or maybe even just a flip-flop at 30 GHz? I am striking out. Hittite hmc447LC3 only covers 10 to 26 GHz (divide by 4) for example.

 

[dick_freebird]

30GHz is way up there for a prescaler, and ones that will run
that fast are probably not "digital" per se, but RF parts that
either presume a ground referred and symmetric, or a capacitor-
blocked RF input. The divider element will have to be a dynamic
flip-flop, normal digital CMOS ones would need a technology raw
gate delay in the 5-7pS range to have a prayer of toggling
at the upper clock rate.

You might take a closer look at the Hittite part's specs and
apps stuff. Ratings for RF prescalers often have some funny
dependence on input power, more power can go faster but
not everyone is willing to throw +20dBm at it; to make it RF
market friendly, maybe they spec at 0dBm input power and
leave some upside on the table for you to pick up? Similarly
I have seen parts which have a bias feed resistor and can
change the bandwidth a fair bit if you're willing to burn the
power.

I'd also peer at that low end of 10GHz, seems kind of a tight
notch of operation. What makes it so, can you just use a
bigger (but then higher ESR/ESL, and more insertion loss
before the clock pin, meaning you have to again throw power
at the problem) blocking cap, or something?

 

[jiripolivka]

30GHz is way up there for a prescaler, and ones that will run
that fast are probably not "digital" per se, but RF parts that
either presume a ground referred and symmetric, or a capacitor-
blocked RF input. The divider element will have to be a dynamic
flip-flop, normal digital CMOS ones would need a technology raw
gate delay in the 5-7pS range to have a prayer of toggling
at the upper clock rate.

You might take a closer look at the Hittite part's specs and
apps stuff. Ratings for RF prescalers often have some funny
dependence on input power, more power can go faster but
not everyone is willing to throw +20dBm at it; to make it RF
market friendly, maybe they spec at 0dBm input power and
leave some upside on the table for you to pick up? Similarly
I have seen parts which have a bias feed resistor and can
change the bandwidth a fair bit if you're willing to burn the
power.

I'd also peer at that low end of 10GHz, seems kind of a tight
notch of operation. What makes it so, can you just use a
bigger (but then higher ESR/ESL, and more insertion loss
before the clock pin, meaning you have to again throw power
at the problem) blocking cap, or something?

To my knowledge there is so far no such device capable of dividing the frequency
without intermediate stages up to 30 GHz. In 2005 I had an opportunity to test
a nice frequency divider running up to 25 GHz. It was interesting but also annoying
that without an input signal it had to oscillate at 15 GHz approx.
EPR counters utilize external mixers to lock on input frequencies, (by multiplying the reference burst at 100 MHz) and this way one can count up to 110 GHz, maybe more.
I think we may see a "full" counter running up to 100 GHz soon, but by now I have not seen
a complete suitable set of dividers on the market.

 

[afz23]

To my knowledge,Peregrine semiconductors make prescalars div by 4 up to 13.5 GHz,I have used them,PE9309 is the part I used,now they have PE9308.

 

[ledum]

https://www.microsemi.com/products/mmic/prescalers/uxd20k

 

[biff44]

I guess microsemi wins so far, with DC to 26 GHz.

 

[D.A.(Tony)Stewart]

I found this Canadian paper (2012)

four signal-generation chips that comprise a fundamental-wave voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), an output buffer, and a divide-by-32 prescaler. The VCOs with contiguous tuning ranges cover almost the full waveguide band from 110 to 170GHz (D-band). The fastest VCO operates at up to 181GHz in combination with the prescaler. The VCOs run on 1.8V, draw ~35 mA, and achieve a single-sideband phase noise ranging from -92 to -82 dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset frequency. Power consumption of the high-speed frequency divider in the first prescaler stage is 70mW. The circuits are based on an Infineon SiGe technology, which features HBTs with an fmax of 340 GHz.