Integrated circuit comprising circuitry to determine settings for an injection-locked oscillator

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9735792-B2
Application number	US-201414651571-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 3, 2014
Priority date	Jan 8, 2013
Publication date	Aug 15, 2017
Grant date	Aug 15, 2017

Abstract

Embodiments of an integrated circuit (IC) comprising circuitry to determine settings for an injection-locked oscillator (ILO) are described. In some embodiments, an injection signal is generated based on a first clock edge of a reference clock signal, and is injected into an ILO. Next, one or more output signals of the ILO are sampled based on a second clock edge of the reference clock signal, and settings for the ILO are determined based on the samples. In some embodiments, a sequence of two or more time-to-digital (TDC) codes is generated based on a reference clock signal and a free-running ILO. In some embodiments, the TDC circuitry that is already present in a delay-locked loop is reused for determining the sequence of two or more TDC codes. The ILO settings can then be determined based on the sequence of two or more TDC codes.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An integrated circuit (IC), comprising:
an injection-locked oscillator (ILO) to generate a set of oscillating signals having different phases, wherein the ILO has a natural oscillation frequency;
first circuitry to inject at least one injection signal into at least one injection location of the ILO, wherein the injection signal is generated based on a first clock edge of a reference clock signal having a reference clock frequency;
second circuitry to obtain one or more samples by sampling the set of oscillating signals based on a second clock edge of the reference clock signal, wherein each sample represents a signal value of an oscillating signal in the set of oscillating signals at an instance of time that corresponds to the second clock edge; and
third circuitry to determine settings for the ILO based on the one or more samples, wherein the settings correspond to the natural oscillation frequency being substantially equal to the reference clock frequency or an integral multiple of the reference clock frequency.

2. The IC of claim 1 , wherein the first circuitry is capable of injecting multiple delayed versions of the injection signal at multiple injection locations of the ILO.

3. The IC of claim 1 , wherein after injecting the injection signal corresponding to the first clock edge of the reference clock signal, the first circuitry is capable of preventing subsequent injection signals corresponding to subsequent clock edges of the reference clock signal from being injected into the ILO.

4. The IC of claim 1 , wherein the ILO includes a set of delay stages, and wherein the set of oscillating signals correspond to output signals of at least a subset of the set of delay stages.

5. The IC of claim 4 , wherein the second circuitry includes at least two edge-triggered flip-flops, wherein outputs of at least two different delay stages are coupled to inputs of the at least two edge-triggered flip-flops.

6. The IC of claim 5 , wherein the third circuitry includes logic to determine a delay-element setting by performing a table lookup based on values stored in the at least two edge-triggered flip-flops.

7. An integrated circuit (IC), comprising:
an injection-locked oscillator (ILO) to generate a set of oscillating signals having different phases, wherein the ILO has a natural oscillation frequency;
first circuitry to obtain a set of samples by sampling the set of oscillating signals based on a reference clock signal having a reference clock frequency, wherein each sample represents a signal value of an oscillating signal in the set of oscillating signals at an instance of time that corresponds to a second clock edge;
second circuitry to determine a sequence of two or more codes, wherein each code in the sequence of two or more codes is determined based on a set of samples that was obtained when the set of oscillating signals was sampled at a clock edge of the reference clock signal, and wherein different codes in the sequence of two or more codes correspond to different clock edges of the reference clock signal that were used for sampling the set of oscillating signals;
third circuitry to determine settings for the ILO based on the sequence of two or more codes, wherein the settings correspond to the natural oscillation frequency being substantially equal to the reference clock frequency or an integral multiple of the reference clock frequency.

8. The IC of claim 7 , further comprising fourth circuitry to prevent an injection signal from being injected into the ILO.

9. The IC of claim 7 , wherein the third circuitry includes fourth circuitry to determine a delay-element setting by performing a table lookup based on a value that is computed using the sequence of two or more codes.

10. The IC of claim 9 , further comprising fifth circuitry to provide the delay-element setting to the ILO.

11. A method, comprising:
injecting at least one injection signal into at least one injection location of an injection locked oscillator (ILO) having a natural oscillation frequency, wherein the injection signal is generated based on a first clock edge of a reference clock signal having a reference clock frequency, and wherein the ILO generates a set of oscillating signals having different phases;
obtaining one or more samples by sampling the set of oscillating signals based on a second clock edge of the reference clock signal, wherein each sample represents a signal value of an oscillating signal in the set of oscillating signals at an instance of time that corresponds to the second clock edge; and
determining settings for the ILO based on the one or more samples, wherein the settings correspond to the natural oscillation frequency being substantially equal to the reference clock frequency or an integral multiple of the reference clock frequency.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein after injecting the injection signal corresponding to the first clock edge of the reference clock signal, the method further comprises preventing subsequent injection signals corresponding to subsequent clock edges of the reference clock signal from being injected into the ILO.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein said determining includes determining a delay-element setting by performing a table lookup based on the one or more samples.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the method is performed when one or more of the following events occur:
a clock drift in the reference clock signal is greater than a threshold,
a change in a temperature value is greater than a threshold, and
a change in a supply voltage value is greater than a threshold.

Assignees

• Rambus Inc

Inventors

• Zerbe Jared L
• Hossain Masum

Classifications

• H03L7/06

  using a reference signal applied to a frequency- or phase-locked loop · CPC title

• H03L1/00

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

• H03K3/0307

  Stabilisation of output, e.g. using crystal · CPC title

• H03K3/0315 Primary

  Ring oscillators · CPC title

• H03L7/24 Primary

  using a reference signal directly applied to the generator · CPC title