Semiconductor device and control method of the same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10693476-B2
Application number	US-201815950968-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 11, 2018
Priority date	Jun 12, 2017
Publication date	Jun 23, 2020
Grant date	Jun 23, 2020

Abstract

Increases of circuit scale and power consumption are suppressed while frequency deviation is kept within a predetermined allowable range. A semiconductor device according to an embodiment includes a variable load capacity circuit including a plurality of load capacity elements coupled in parallel to one end of a crystal resonator and a plurality of switches that are respectively serially coupled to the load capacity elements, and a switch control unit that controls ON/OFF of the switches on the basis of information to be an index of frequency deviation due to temperature change of a frequency signal obtained by oscillating the crystal resonator. The switch control unit changes the number of switches that will be turned ON among the plurality of switches so that an absolute value of the frequency deviation becomes small when the information is not included in a predetermined allowable range.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A semiconductor device comprising:
a crystal resonator;
an oscillation circuit that oscillates the crystal resonator and outputs a frequency signal;
a variable load capacity circuit including 1) a plurality of load capacity elements coupled in parallel with each other and coupled to one end of the crystal resonator and 2) a plurality of switches that are respectively serially coupled to the load capacity elements;
a temperature sensor that detects a temperature of the crystal resonator and generates temperature information based on the detected temperature of the crystal resonator; and
a switch control unit that controls ON/OFF of the switches based on the temperature information,
wherein, when the temperature information that is used as an index of frequency deviation of the frequency signal due to a change in the temperature of the crystal resonator falls outside a predetermined allowable range, the switch control unit changes a number of switches to be turned ON among the plurality of switches to allow an absolute value of the frequency deviation to be small.

2. The semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein the information is frequency shift information between a frequency of the frequency signal and a master frequency of a wireless signal received from an external master wireless device.

3. The semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein the switch control unit changes the number of switches that will be turned ON among the plurality of switches during a period where no packet is transmitted or received.

4. The semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein capacities of the load capacity elements are equal to each other.

5. The semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein the variable load capacity circuit further includes a plurality of load capacity elements coupled in parallel to the other end of the crystal resonator and a plurality of switches that are respectively serially coupled to the load capacity elements.

6. The semiconductor device according to claim 5 , wherein a number of the load capacity elements coupled to one end of the crystal resonator and the number of the load capacity elements coupled to the other end of the crystal resonator are the same.

7. The semiconductor device according to claim 5 , wherein capacities of the load capacity elements coupled to one end and the other end of the crystal resonator are equal to each other.

8. A control method of a semiconductor device including
a crystal resonator,
an oscillation circuit that oscillates the crystal resonator and outputs a frequency signal,
a variable load capacity circuit including 1) a plurality of load capacity elements coupled in parallel with each other and coupled to one end of the crystal resonator and 2) a plurality of switches that are respectively serially coupled to the load capacity elements, and
a temperature sensor that detects a temperature of the crystal resonator and generates temperature information based on the detected temperature of the crystal resonator, the control method comprising:
acquiring the temperature information from the temperature sensor, and
changing, when the temperature information that is used as an index of frequency deviation of the frequency signal due to a change in the temperature of the crystal resonator falls outside a predetermined allowable range, a number of switches to be turned ON among the plurality of switches to allow an absolute value of the frequency deviation to be small.

9. The control method of a semiconductor device according to claim 8 , wherein the information is frequency shift information between a frequency of the frequency signal and a master frequency of a wireless signal received from an external master wireless device.

10. The control method of a semiconductor device according to claim 8 , wherein the number of switches that will be turned ON among the plurality of switches is changed during a period where no packet is transmitted or received.

11. The control method of a semiconductor device according to claim 8 , wherein capacities of the load capacity elements are equal to each other.

12. The control method of a semiconductor device according to claim 8 , wherein the variable load capacity circuit further includes a plurality of load capacity elements coupled in parallel to the other end of the crystal resonator and a plurality of switches that are respectively serially coupled to the load capacity elements.

13. The control method of a semiconductor device according to claim 12 , wherein a number of the load capacity elements coupled to one end of the crystal resonator and the number of the load capacity elements coupled to the other end of the crystal resonator are the same.

14. The control method of a semiconductor device according to claim 12 , wherein capacities of the load capacity elements coupled to one end and the other end of the crystal resonator are equal to each other.

15. A semiconductor device comprising:
a crystal resonator;
an oscillation circuit that oscillates the crystal resonator and outputs a frequency signal;
a radio transceiver circuit that receives the frequency signal from the oscillation circuit and generates a transmission signal using the received frequency signal, the radio transceiver circuit wirelessly transmitting the generated transmission signal via an antenna;
a variable load capacity circuit including 1) a plurality of load capacity elements coupled in parallel with each other and coupled to one end of the crystal resonator and 2) a plurality of switches that are respectively serially coupled to the load capacity elements;
a temperature sensor that detects a temperature of the crystal resonator and generates temperature information based on the detected temperature of the crystal resonator; and
a switch control unit that controls ON/OFF of the switches based on the temperature information,
wherein, when the temperature information that is used as an index of frequency deviation of the frequency signal due to a change in the temperature of the crystal resonator falls outside a predetermined allowable range, the switch control unit changes a number of switches to be turned ON among the plurality of switches to allow an absolute value of the frequency deviation to be small.

Assignees

• Renesas Electronics Corp

Inventors

• Maruyama Yuichi
• Matsuno Noriaki

Classifications

• H03B5/04 Primary

  Modifications of generator to compensate for variations in physical values, e.g. power supply, load, temperature · CPC title

• H03B5/366

  and comprising means for varying the frequency by a variable voltage or current · CPC title

• H03L1/026

  by using a memory for digitally storing correction values (H03L1/025 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H03L1/028

  of generators comprising piezoelectric resonators (H03L1/021, H03L1/022 take precedence; oscillation generators with a piezoelectric resonator H03B5/32) · CPC title

• H03B2201/0266

  the means comprising a transistor · CPC title