Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Signal converting – shaping – or generating – Rectangular or pulse waveform width control
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-22
2003-12-16
Callahan, Timothy P. (Department: 2816)
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Signal converting, shaping, or generating
Rectangular or pulse waveform width control
C327S170000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06664834
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF INVENTION
The invention is related to the field of integrated circuits.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The duty cycle of a clock signal is the ratio of the “on” time to the total time period of the clock cycle. Integrated circuits, such as microprocessors, rely on clock generators to provide a clock signal. The clock generator can include a phase locked loop (PLL) device and an oscillator. The PLL receives an external frequency signal from the oscillator and locks onto the external frequency. The PLL can then send the frequency to divider circuits to divide the frequency of the signal to a desired duty cycle, such as 50% for example. The duty cycle can then be distributed throughout the integrated circuit. However, the duty cycle may travel through a number of buffers, which may distort the duty cycle.
For example, clock distribution circuits typically use inverters or buffers to drive the clock signal. While a PLL controls the frequency and typically also the duty cycle, the duty cycle may become distorted due to variations between the P and N devices of the distribution inverters. If buffers are used, this distortion will be reduced as the signal passes through two stages, but clock skew will be increased by the additional delay. Furthermore, to moderate the duty cycle, the PLL must generate a clock two times the frequency of that required by the circuit.
One approach that has been implemented to address these problems is shown in
FIGS. 1A and 1B
, which show a current-starved inverter in schematic and functional form. In this approach, devices
110
and
120
are connected in series to serve as controlled current sources
130
and
140
for inverter
150
, which includes devices
112
and
122
. By controlling the current sources
130
and
140
, the output slew of output clock signal
160
can be adjusted to maintain the duty cycle of input clock signal
105
. However, as processes scale and Vcc decreases, the headroom used by the series devices
110
and
120
significantly decreases the range of control allowed by this approach. Additionally, there is some non-linearity at the ends of the control range in this circuit.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5477180 (1995-12-01), Chen
patent: 5572158 (1996-11-01), Lee et al.
patent: 5808498 (1998-09-01), Donnelly et al.
patent: 5907254 (1999-05-01), Chang
patent: 6084452 (2000-07-01), Drost et al.
patent: 6198322 (2001-03-01), Yoshimura
patent: 6320438 (2001-11-01), Arcus
patent: 6366115 (2002-04-01), DiTommaso
Nair Rajendran
Wright Chantal E.
Blakely , Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman LLP
Callahan Timothy P.
Cox Cassandra
Intel Corporation
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