Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Specific signal discriminating without subsequent control – By phase
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-10
2003-07-08
Tran, Toan (Department: 2816)
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Specific signal discriminating without subsequent control
By phase
C327S002000, C327S159000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06590426
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to feedback systems, and particularly to those circuits useful for implementing a phase locked loop, and more particularly to clock and data recovery circuits.
2. Description of Problem to be Solved and Related Art
Phase locked loops (PLLs) have been known and studied for quite some time. Initially they were very expensive to implement, and found use in only the most technically-demanding and/or cost-insensitive applications. However, as the cost of integrated circuit technology has decreased over the years, and as the performance capability of such integrated circuit technology has increased, today PLLs are extremely inexpensive to implement and are found in wide use in many applications.
A generalized block diagram of a traditional PLL is shown in
FIG. 1
which is configured for a clock and data recovery application. The phase locked loop
100
includes a phase/frequency detector
102
which receives the input data signal conveyed on node
112
and the output clock signal of the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO)
110
conveyed on node
124
. The phase/frequency detector
102
generates on its output node
116
an error signal which is a function of the phase difference between the input data signal and the VCO clock, and may also include additional circuitry to generate on an output node
114
the reconstructed data, as shown.
A gain block
104
, an integrator block
106
, and a summer block
108
together form a filter block which low-pass filters the output of the phase/frequency detector
102
to generate a control signal on node
122
which is provided to the voltage controlled oscillator
110
in order to influence the frequency (and hence the phase) of the VCO output signal. The integrator block
106
is often implemented using a charge pump and a loop filter capacitor, as is well known in the art. Such loop filter capacitors are usually required to be very large for the PLL to exhibit acceptable peaking behavior in its frequency response.
In order to appreciate this issue, a brief description of the frequency response of this traditional PLL is warranted. The closed loop transfer function, G(s), of this traditional PLL
100
is set forth in Equation 1:
G
(
s
)
=
K
′
ω
z
(
s
+
ω
z
)
S
2
+
K
′
ω
z
s
+
K
′
(
Eq
.
1
)
where K′ and &ohgr;
Z
are determined by the settings of various PLL parameters. In the traditional PLL
100
, the value of &ohgr;
Z
is given by Equation 2.
ω
z
=
I
CK
(
Eq
.
2
)
where I corresponds to the magnitude of the current of the charge pump, C corresponds to the magnitude of the loop filter capacitor, and K corresponds to the gain of the gain block
104
. A graph of the frequency response of this closed loop transfer function G(s) is shown in
FIG. 2
by curve
130
. As shown in this graph, the magnitude of the transfer function is fairly constant at low frequency, and increases slightly for frequencies between &ohgr;
Z
and &ohgr;
BW
(which corresponds to the bandwidth of the closed loop transfer function). As frequency increases above &ohgr;
BW
, the magnitude of the transfer function falls off rapidly. This “peaking” region in the transfer function is labeled as
132
.
The magnitude of this peaking is very critical for many applications. For example, the SONET specification limits the acceptable peaking to 0.1 dB. If allowed to exceed this limit, frequency components of input data jitter which fall within this peaking region are actually amplified by the PLL. If several such PLLs are coupled sequentially, the jitter may be amplified to a degree which severely compromises the ability to meet jitter tolerances, or even to correctly recover data.
If we define:
ω
BW
ω
z
=
γ
γ
-
1
(
Eq
.
3
)
From the SONET specification of 0.1 dB, we arrive at a value of gamma of 1.01. Consequently,
ω
BW
ω
z
=
101
(
Eq
.
4
)
and
I
CK
=
ω
BW
101
(
Eq
.
5
)
For the OC48 data rate of the SONET specification, the loop bandwidth must meet the following relationship:
&ohgr;
BW
≦2&pgr;2 MHz (Eq. 6)
The magnitude of the gain factor K is set by the loop bandwidth and the VCO gain, K
V
, and is typically much less than unity, such as, for example:
4
π
50
≅
0.25
(
Eq
.
7
)
To achieve a reasonably fast charge pump in, for example, 0.25&mgr; semiconductor technology, the value of I may be advantageously set to 100 &mgr;A. Calculating for the required magnitude of the loop filter capacitor, we arrive at:
C
≥
101
I
K
(
1
ω
BW
)
C
≥
100
100
µA
0.25
(
1
2
π2MHz
)
=
3.2
nF
(
Eq
.
8
)
This amount of capacitance (3.2 nF) is difficult to integrate onto an integrated circuit without requiring large amounts of die area for the capacitor. For lower data rates, an even greater amount of capacitance is required (e.g., 16 times as much for OC3). For this reason, the loop filter capacitor is usually provided externally. But such an external capacitor adds an additional complexity to board layout, and introduces noise susceptibility on the extremely critical loop filter node within the PLL.
There have been other attempts to reduce the size of the required loop filter capacitor. One such method is described by Bulzachelli in U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,298 in which the input data signal is routed through a variable delay block, whose output is then routed to the phase detector. This results in a zero placed in the loop feedback path that does not appear in the closed loop transfer function, and hence there is no peaking in the closed loop transfer function. The large filter capacitor otherwise required at least partially to achieve acceptably low peaking is not required to be as large. While this is an elegant engineering solution, there are nonetheless difficulties which must be dealt with to implement such a solution requiring a variable delay block. First, it may be difficult to implement a variable delay block having an adequate delay range, especially in multi-rate applications. Additionally, the variable delay block must accurately delay the data signal in spite of the random nature of data transitions in the data signal, where the time between transitions is not necessarily constant. Moreover, the variable delay block represents yet another block of circuitry that must operate at the full data rate, and consequently its power dissipation may not be insignificant, especially when a low power clock and data recovery implementation is desired.
In spite of these previous efforts, and notwithstanding the long history of engineering efforts refining the design of phase locked loops, most PLLs still require either a large external capacitor or require significant additional integrated circuit die area to implement the loop filter capacitor monolithicly. Therefore, additional improvements which can reduce the size of the loop filter capacitor are still greatly desired.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In a feedback system, such as a PLL, the integrating function associated with a loop filter capacitor may be implemented digitally rather than using a traditional integrating capacitor. The area required for such a digital integrating block is easily implemented on the same integrated circuit die as the PLL. There is no need for either an external loop filter capacitor nor for a large loop filter capacitor integrated on the same integrated circuit die as the PLL. Consequently, printed wiring board layout issues are simplified, and at least one dedicated package pin may be eliminated. Other kinds of feedback systems can also benefit by implementing a loop filter capacitor function or other long time constant requirement by digitally synthesizing the integrating capacitor.
In certain embodiments of the invention an analog phase detector may be utilized, whose phase error output signal is converted to a
Silicon Laboratories Inc.
Tran Toan
Zagorin O'Brien & Graham LLP
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