System and method for fast converging reference clock duty cycle correction for digital to time converter (DTC)-based analog fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10917078-B2
Application number	US-202016786364-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 10, 2020
Priority date	Jan 5, 2018
Publication date	Feb 9, 2021
Grant date	Feb 9, 2021

Abstract

A system and method for fast converging reference clock duty cycle correction for a digital to time converter (DTC) based analog fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) are herein disclosed. According to one embodiment, an electronic circuit includes a clock doubler, a comparator that outputs a value representing a difference between a voltage at a voltage-to-current (Gm) circuit and a reference voltage that is adjusted to compensate for an offset of the comparator, and a duty cycle calibration circuit that receives the value output from the comparator and adjusts a duty cycle of the PLL by extracting an error from the value output from the comparator and delaying a clock edge of the duty cycle according to the extracted error.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A phase-lock loop (PLL) electronic circuit, comprising:
a comparator that outputs a value representing a difference between a voltage at a voltage-to-current (Gm) circuit and a reference voltage; and
a duty cycle calibration circuit that receives the value output from the comparator and adjusts a duty cycle of the PLL by:
extracting a duty cycle error from the value output from the comparator, the duty cycle error being extracted by
correlating a frequency error with a cycle status, and
delaying a clock edge of the duty cycle according to the extracted duty cycle error.

2. The circuit of claim 1 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit further includes a digital differentiator that extracts the duty cycle error from the value output from the comparator.

3. The circuit of claim 1 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit extracts the cycle status from the value output from the comparator.

4. The circuit of claim 3 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit delays the clock edge of the duty cycle based on the extracted cycle status.

5. The circuit of claim 4 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit delays the clock edge of the duty cycle only when the extracted cycle status indicates an odd cycle.

6. The circuit of claim 1 , further comprising a reference voltage generation circuit that adjusts the reference voltage to compensate for the comparator offset.

7. The circuit of claim 6 , further comprising a digital-to-time converter (DTC) gain calibration circuit that adjusts a gain offset based on the value output from the comparator.

8. A method, comprising:
outputting, by a comparator, a value representing a difference between a voltage at a voltage-to-current (Gm) circuit and a reference voltage;
extracting, by a duty cycle calibration circuit, a duty cycle error in a duty cycle of a phase-lock loop (PLL) from the output value from the comparator by
correlating a frequency error with a cycle status; and
adjusting the duty cycle of the PLL based on the extracted duty cycle error by delaying a clock edge of the duty cycle according to the extracted duty cycle error.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising adjusting, by a reference voltage generation circuit, the reference voltage according to the value output from the comparator.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the extracting is further performed by a digital differentiator of the duty cycle calibration circuit.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the extracting further comprises extracting the cycle status from the value output from the comparator.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit delays the clock edge of the duty cycle based on the extracted cycle status.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit delays the clock edge of the duty cycle only when the extracted cycle status indicates an odd cycle.

14. The method of claim 8 , further comprising calibrating, with a digital-to-time converter (DTC) gain calibration circuit, a DTC gain of the PLL.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the DTC calibration circuit calibrates a DTC gain of the PLL and the duty cycle calibration circuit adjusts the duty cycle of the PLL based on the value output from the comparator.

16. An electronic device having a phase-lock loop (PLL) electronic circuit, comprising:
a comparator that outputs a value representing a difference between a voltage at a voltage-to-current (Gm) circuit and a reference voltage; and
a duty cycle calibration circuit that:
extracts a duty cycle error from the value output from the comparator by correlating a frequency error with a cycle status; and
delays a clock edge of the duty cycle according to the extracted duty cycle error.

17. The electronic device of claim 16 , further comprising a digital-to-time converter (DTC) gain calibration circuit that adjusts a DTC gain of the PLL based on the value output from the comparator.

18. The electronic device of claim 17 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit and the DTC gain calibration circuit both utilize the value output from the comparator simultaneously.

19. The electronic device of claim 16 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit extracts the cycle status from the value output from the comparator that indicates an even cycle status or an odd cycle status.

20. The electronic device of claim 19 , wherein the duty cycle calibration circuit delays the clock edge of the duty cycle only when the extracted cycle status indicates an odd cycle status.

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Wu Wanghua
• Yao Chih-Wei

Classifications

• H03L7/18

  using a frequency divider or counter in the loop (H03L7/20, H03L7/22 take precedence) · CPC title

• H03L7/091

  the phase or frequency detector using a sampling device (H03L7/087 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H03L7/0802

  the loop being adapted for reducing power consumption (H03L7/14 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H03L7/08

  Details of the phase-locked loop · CPC title

• H03L7/099

  concerning mainly the controlled oscillator of the loop · CPC title