High stable oscillator for various operating mode

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10305454-B2
Application number	US-201715403393-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 11, 2017
Priority date	Mar 30, 2016
Publication date	May 28, 2019
Grant date	May 28, 2019

Abstract

A frequency stable oscillator with compensation circuit, the device includes a ring oscillator circuit having S number of stages, a current generator circuit configured to generate a first current, a replica circuit having an inverter with output connected to input, configured to generate a first voltage upon dumping a second current onto the replica circuit, a first operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) with an input as the first voltage, configured to generate a third current and a current mirror circuit configured to generate a fourth current by adding the first current and the third current in a particular ratio M:N, wherein the inverter of the replica circuit is equivalent to a single stage of the ring oscillator circuit and wherein the fourth current is the total current for the ring oscillator circuit and is as close as possible to S times the second current.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A frequency stable oscillator with compensation circuit comprising:
a ring oscillator circuit comprising S number of stages;
a current generator circuit configured to generate a first current;
a replica circuit comprising an inverter with output connected to input, configured to generate a first voltage upon dumping a second current onto the replica circuit;

a first operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) with an input as the first voltage, configured to generate a third current; and
a current mirror circuit configured to generate a fourth current by adding the first current and the third current in a particular ratio M:N;
wherein the inverter of the replica circuit is equivalent to a single stage of the ring oscillator circuit, and
wherein the fourth current is the total current for the ring oscillator circuit and is set to be approximately equal to S times the second current.

2. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , wherein the current generator circuit comprises a second operational transconductance amplifier (OTA 2 ) based feedback loop.

3. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 2 , wherein the feedback loop of the current generator circuit comprises a 1:K current mirror circuit wherein value of ‘K’ is determined upfront and is fixed.

4. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 3 , wherein the ratio 1:K is fixed by a resistor.

5. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , wherein the first OTA has a second input as bias voltage of a variable resistance with trimmable bits.

6. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 5 , wherein the trimmable bits of the variable resistance of the variable resistance are obtained from an on-chip e-fuse bank.

7. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , wherein the first OTA has bias current as the output current of the current generator circuit.

8. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , wherein the ratio M:N is selected by inputting trim bits to a decoder.

9. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , wherein the ratio M:N is once selected at the testing stage and then burned as a fixed value for the operation of the oscillator.

10. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , further comprising a level shifter connected to the output of the ring oscillator circuit.

11. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , wherein the current generator circuit comprises a start-up circuit.

12. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 1 , wherein S is an odd number and each stage of the ring oscillator circuit comprises an inverter.

13. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 12 , wherein the inverter of each stage of the ring oscillator circuit comprises a pmos transistor and a nmos transistor.

14. The frequency stable oscillator of claim 13 , wherein the pmos transistor and the nmos transistor are sized to have the switching threshold equal to half a supply voltage of the ring oscillator circuit.

15. A method of frequency stabilization of a ring oscillator circuit, comprising:
generating a first current by a current generator circuit;
generating a first voltage by dumping a second current onto a replica circuit, wherein the replica circuit comprises an inverter with output connected to input and the inverter of the replica circuit is equivalent to a single stage of the ring oscillator circuit;
generating a third current by voltage to current conversion of the first voltage; and
generating a fourth current by adding the first current and the third current in a particular ratio M:N, wherein the fourth current is the total current for the ring oscillator circuit and is set to be approximately equal to the second current multiplied with number of stages in the ring oscillator circuit.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising level shifting the output frequency of the ring oscillator circuit to a core supply voltage level.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the voltage to current conversion for generating the third current is performed using a first operational transconductance amplifier (OTA).

18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the first current is generated by the current generator circuit using a second operational transconductance amplifier (OTA 2 ) based feedback loop.

19. The method of claim 17 , further comprising inputting a bias voltage of a variable resistance with trimmable bits to the first operational transconductance amplifier OTA.

20. The method of claim 15 , wherein the first current and the third current are directly and inversely proportional to temperature respectively.

21. The method of claim 15 , wherein the ratio M:N is once selected at the testing stage and then burned as a fixed value.

22. The method of claim 15 , wherein the first voltage is set to be approximately equal to a supply voltage of the ring oscillator circuit.

23. The method of claim 15 , wherein the first current is insensitive to the power supply variation.

24. The method of claim 15 , wherein the first voltage captures process variation in the resistance of the ring oscillator circuit.

25. The method of claim 15 , wherein the resistance of the replica circuit is equal to resistance of a single stage of the ring oscillator circuit.

26. A low power frequency stable on-chip CMOS oscillator comprising:
a ring oscillator circuit with S number of stages and each stage comprising an inverter;
a current generator circuit configured to generate a first current, insensitive to power supply variations;
a replica circuit comprising an inverter with output connected to input, configured to generate a first voltage by dumping a second current onto the replica circuit;
an operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) with inputs as the first voltage and a bias voltage of a variable resistance with trimmable bits, with bias current as one of the output current of the current generator, configured to generate a third current; and
a current mirror circuit configured to generate a fourth current by adding the first current and the third current in a particular ratio M:N;
wherein the fourth current is the total current for the ring oscillator circuit and is set to be approximately equal to S times the second current,
wherein the inverter of the replica circuit is equivalent to a single stage of the ring oscillator circuit and
wherein the first and third current are directly and inversely proportional to the temperature respectively.

Assignees

• Megachips Corp

Inventors

• Khare Abhishek Kumar

Classifications

• H03L1/00

  Stabilisation of generator output against variations of physical values, e.g. power supply · CPC title

• H03K3/0315 Primary

  Ring oscillators · CPC title

• H03K3/011

  Modifications of generator to compensate for variations in physical values, e.g. voltage, temperature {(to maintain energy constant H03K3/015)} · CPC title

• H03K3/354

  Astable circuits · CPC title