Patent Grant
11804830
This application claims the priority from the TW Patent Application No. 110142159, filed on Nov. 12, 2021, and all contents of such TW Patent Application are included in the present disclosure.
The present disclosure relates to a filtering technology, in particular to, a clock filter device, a clock filter and a pulse generator that can dynamically adjust a cut-off frequency to effectively filter out the noise in the clock.
In order to prevent the clock from generating glitches (which can be regarded as a kind of noise in the clock) due to unexpected reasons and causing the system to become unstable, usually, the clock will pass through a clock filter device (usually achieved by using a low-pass filter) to filter before the clock is supplied to the system, so that the glitches will not enter the system.
Referring to
The inverted unit INV1 generates a clock CLB_INB′ which is inverted from a clock CLK_IN′. The pulse generator 12 receives the clock CLK_IN′ to generate a pulse signal P_OUT1, and the pulse generator 13 receives the clock CLK_INB′ to generate a pulse signal P_OUT2. A set input terminal and a reset input terminal of the set-reset flip-flop 14 receive the pulse signals P_OUT1 and P_OUT2 respectively to generate a clock CLK_OUT′ at the non-inverted output terminal.
When the frequency of the clock CLK_IN′ is too high (higher than the cut-off frequency of the clock filter device 1 of the prior art), the pulse generators 12 and 13 cannot generate the pulse signals P_OUT1 and P_OUT2. Therefore, the clock CLK_OUT′ of the non-inverted output terminal of the set-reset flip-flop cannot be transited (i.e. the clock CLK_OUT′ maintains the same level). In other words, if there is a glitch (usually a high frequency) in the clock CLK_IN′, the glitch will be filtered out by the clock filter device 1 of the prior art. Alternatively, when a hacker deliberately increases the frequency of the clock CLK_IN′ to attack the chip, the clock CLK_IN′ with increasing frequency will also be filtered out by the clock filter device 1 of the prior art.
The cut-off frequency of the clock filter device 1 of the prior art must make the clock CLK_IN′ which allows the system worked to pass through, and to filter out the noise (such as glitches) in the clock CLK_IN′. Therefore, the cut-off frequency should be designed to be closed to but not less than the frequency of the clock CLK_IN′ that allows the system worked. If the frequency of the clock CLK_IN′ which allows the system worked is changed, the pulse widths of the pulse signals P_OUT1 and P_OUT2 output by the pulse generators 12 and 13 must be adjusted to change the cut-off frequency of the clock filter device 1 of the prior art.
Referring to
The signal selector MUX1 selects one of the first pulse signal, the second pulse signal, the third pulse signal and the fourth pulse signal as a pulse signal P_OUT output by the pulse generator 3 based on a selected signal SEL. Moreover, the pulse width of the first pulse signal is wider than the pulse width of the second pulse signal, the pulse width of the second pulse signal is wider than the pulse width of the third pulse signal, and the pulse width of the third pulse signal is wider than the pulse width of the fourth pulse signal.
The number of the delay chains DL1 to DL4 determines the number of the pulse widths of the pulse signals to be selected, and the selected pulse width also determines the cut-off frequency of the clock filter device 1 of the prior art. Hence, for the clock CLK of a specific frequency, the number of the delay units which passed through can be adjusted, so that the pulse width of the output pulse signal P_OUT can just make a clock CLK_OUT′ of the output terminal of the set-reset flip-flop 14 transited. However, when the frequency of the clock CLK rises higher than the cut-off frequency (a specific frequency), the clock CLK_OUT′ of the output terminal of the set-reset flip-flop 14 will not be transited.
Simply speaking, the method in
Furthermore, when the adjustable range of the cutoff frequency is wider, it is necessary to use a specific method to select an optimal cut-off frequency to filter out the noise in the clock effectively. On the other hand, since the clock filter device 1 of the prior art is affected by the process parameters, voltage and temperature, the cut-off frequency will be changed. Although the part of the process error is fixed at the factory and can be adjusted and compensated, in the event of a hacker attack, the hacker can still change the voltage and temperature of the clock filter device 1 of the prior art to make the cut-off frequency of the clock filter device 1 of the prior art drifted. Consequently, there is a need for a technical solution that can dynamically adjust the cut-off frequency to prevent the cut-off frequency from being drifted.
One of the purposes of the present disclosure is to provide a clock filter device, which comprises a reference clock generator, a clock filter, a first counter, a second counter and a controller. The reference clock generator is configured to generate a first clock when the reference clock generator is enabled. The clock filter is electrically connected to the reference clock generator, and is configured to receive an input clock and a controlling signal, and filter the input clock to generate a second clock. Wherein, a cut-off frequency of the clock filter is controlled by the controlling signal, and the input clock is the first clock in a calibration mode. The first counter is electrically connected to the reference clock generator, and is configured to generate a first count value based on counting the first clock. The second counter is electrically connected to the clock filter, and is configured to generate a second count value based on counting the second clock. The controller is electrically connected to the reference clock generator, the first counter, the second counter and the clock filter. In the calibration mode, when the first count value counts to a first specific count value or the second count value counts to a second specific count value, the controller disables the reference clock generator, and then the controller generates the controlling signal according to whether an absolute difference value between the second count value and the first count value is less than or equal to a specific absolute difference value.
Correspondingly, an embodiment of the present disclosure also provides a pulse generator which does not need to use a plurality of delay chains, and a clock filter constructed by using the above pulse generator.
In conclusion, the clock filter device provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure can dynamically adjust the cut-off frequency, so that it can prevent the cut-off frequency from being affected by the process parameters, voltage and temperature of the. Moreover, the clock filter and the pulse generator provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure have the advantages of low power consumption and high safety.
In order to further understand the technology, means and effects of the present disclosure, reference may be made to the following detailed description and drawings, so that the purpose, features and concepts of the present disclosure can be thoroughly and concretely understood. However, the following detailed description and drawings are only used to reference and illustrate the implementations of the present disclosure, and they not used to limit the present disclosure.
The accompanying drawings are provided to enable persons with ordinary knowledge in the technical field of the present disclosure to further understand the present disclosure, and are incorporated into and constitute a part of the specification of the present disclosure. The drawings illustrate exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, and are used to explain the principle of the present disclosure together with the description of the present disclosure.
The embodiments of the present disclosure are described in detail as reference, and the drawings of the present disclosure are illustrated. In the case of possibility, the element symbols are used in the drawings to refer to the same or similar components. In addition, the embodiment is only one approach of the implementation of the design concept of the present disclosure, and the following multiple embodiments are not intended to limit the present disclosure.
The present disclosure provides a technical solution that can dynamically adjust a cut-off frequency of a clock filter, so as to prevent hackers from attacking the system by adjusting the temperature and voltage to raise the cut-off frequency upward. A clock filter device of this technical solution is to find an optimal cut-off frequency of the clock filter through a controller in the calibration mode, so as to achieve an effective clock filtering. Furthermore, in the calibration mode, a reference clock (note: the reference clock is generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit of the clock filter device, so it can be served as the reference basis for clock adjustment) which has not passed the clock filter and the reference clock which passed the clock filter make a first counter and a second counter count respectively. A count value is obtained after the first counter counts to a first specific count value. Then, the count values of the first counter and the second counter are compared to each other to determine whether the two values are approximate or not, so as to adjust the cut-off frequency of the clock filter. When the count values of the two counters are not approximate, the previous cut-off frequency of the clock filter is taken as the optimal cut-off frequency, so that the clock filter can adopt the optimal cut-off frequency to filter out the noise of the clock effectively in the working mode. In another embodiment, it can be designed to the count value of the first counter is obtained after the second counter counts to a second specific count value. Then, the count values of the first counter and the second counter is compared to each other to determine whether the two values are approximate or not, such that the cut-off frequency can be adjusted accordingly. In an embodiment, the first specific count value may be the same as or different from the second specific count value.
Specifically, the clock filter is often applied to an input path of an external crystal oscillator to prevent glitches from being generated by noise from the external crystal oscillator. The clock filter can filter out the glitches and prevent the system from being affected by the glitches. A pin which leaks outside the chip is connected to the external crystal oscillator, so it is often the target of hacker attacks. However, through the technical solution, since the reference clock is generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit of the clock filter device. Therefore, the calibrated cut-off frequency of the clock filter is not changed by the external environment. Moreover, the present disclosure also provides a technical solution, which can adjust the cut-off frequency of the clock filter without depending on increasing and reducing the number of the delay units, so that the clock filter can have lower consumption than the manner of the prior art.
Firstly, referring to
In a working mode, the controller 42 controls the signal selector MUX2 to select an external clock EX_CLK or a first clock (i.e. a reference clock generated by the internal resistance capacitance circuit 41) provided by the reference clock generator as an input clock CLK_IN of the clock filter 42 through a selecting signal SEL. That is, in the working mode, the clock filter 42 of the clock filter device 4 is allowed to filter out the selected external clock EX_CLK and the first clock generated by the clock generator according to the usage requirements of the system. The signal selector MUX2 can be realized by, for example, a multiplexer, and the present disclosure is not limited thereto.
The clock filter device 4 may enter the calibration mode periodically, or enter the calibration mode only when a specific event (such as an environmental temperature rise event or other hacker attack event) is activated. In the calibration mode, the controller 45 enables the reference clock generator to generate the first clock through an enable signal CLK_EN. The internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41 of the reference clock generator is electrically connected to the AND gate AND5 of the reference clock generator. The two input terminals of the AND gate AND5 receive the enable signal CLK_EN and the reference clock of the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41 respectively. Hence, when the enable signal CLK_EN at a high logic level, the AND gate AND5 will input the reference clock as the first clock to the counter 43 and the signal selector MUX2. Actually, the AND gate AND5 is served as a switching circuit. In other embodiments, it can also be a simple switching transistor, and the present disclosure is not limited thereto.
The clock filter 42 is configured to receive the input clock CLK_IN and a controlling signal ADJ, and filter the input clock CLK_IN to generate a second clock CLK_OUT. The cut-off frequency of the clock filter 42 is controlled by the controlling signal ADJ. In the calibration mode, when the cut-off frequency of the clock filter 42 is adjusted, because only the reference clock generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41 can be trusted, the input clock CLK_IN of the clock filter 42 must be from the first clock of the reference clock generator. In the working mode, the input clock CLK_IN of the clock filter 42 can be the first clock or the external clock EX_CLK selected based on the selecting signal SEL (related to the system requirements). Preferably, the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41 is designed to be insensitive to temperature, so as to avoid being affected by temperature and causing significant frequency drift.
When the counters 43 and 44 enter the calibration mode, they will reset first by a reset signal RST, and the clock filter 42 will also receive the controlling signal ADJ from the controller 45. The value of the controlling signal ADJ is an initial value which is usually the highest cut-off frequency of the corresponding clock filter 42. Then, after the counter 43 counts to a first specific value and the controller 45 generates the controlling signal ADJ to adjust the cut-off frequency of the clock filter 42 (i.e. after one calibration is completed), the counter 43 will also be reset by the rest signal RST. The counter 43 counts based on the first clock to generate a first count value. The counter 44 counts based on the second clock CLK_OUT to generate a second count value.
The controller 45 can be configured to generate the enable signal CLK_EN, the controlling signal ADJ, the selecting signal SEL and the reset signal RST. The controller 45 determines whether the first count value of the counter 43 reaches the first specific count value or not. If the first count value reaches the first specific count value, the controller 45 pulls the enable signal CLK_EN down to a low logic level to disable the reference clock generator to generate the reference clock as the first clock. Next, the controller 45 takes the second value of the second counter 44, and calculates whether an absolute difference value between the second value and the first value is less than or equal to a specific absolute difference value, and the controller 45 generates the controlling signal ADJ accordingly.
Concretely, considering that the reference clock of the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41 is served as the input clock CLK_IN of the clock filter 42, and after being filtered by the clock filter 42, the reference clock of the clock filter 42 has become a clock of a different domain. In order to solve the delay problem across the clock domain, the controller 45 obtains the second count value and calculates the absolute difference value after the reference clock generator is disabled and then a first specific time is elapsed. The first specific time can be one or two clock cycles, and the present disclosure is not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the delay problem across clock domains may not be considered, the controller 45 directly obtains the second count value and calculates the absolute difference value without waiting.
In the calibration mode, when the absolute value is less than or equal to the specific absolute difference value, it means that the clock filter 42 has not completely filtered the reference clock generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41. Therefore, the controller 45 generates a controlling signal ADJ to lower the cut-off frequency of the clock filter, generates the reset signal REL to reset the counters 43 and 44, and re-enables the reference clock generator and clock filter device 4 to continue to operate in the calibration mode.
After performing the above-mentioned calibrations and comparisons several times, when the absolute difference value is greater than the specific absolute difference value, it means that the clock filter 42 completely filters out the reference clock generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41. As a result, the controller 45 takes the previous controlling signal ADJ to set the cut-off frequency of the clock filter 42 and the controls the clock filter device 4 to end the calibration mode and enter the working mode.
In the working mode, the input clock CLK_IN usually selects the external clock EX_CLK. Hence, the frequency of the reference clock generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41 is usually designed to be the same as the frequency of the external clock EX_CLK, so that the design is relatively simple. Therefore, the clock filter 42 takes the cut-off frequency corresponding to the controlling signal ADJ of the penultimate calibration operation in the calibration mode to filter the input clock CLK_IN. However, the present disclosure is not limited to this. If the cut-off frequency of the clock filter 42 can be adjusted linearly, when the frequency of the reference clock generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41 is different from the frequency of the external clock EX_CLK, based on the multiple relationship between the frequencies of the external clock EX_CLK and the reference clock generated by the internal resistance-capacitance circuit 41, the controlling signal ADJ of the penultimate calibration operation in the calibration mode is converted to set the cut-off frequency of the clock filter 42 suitable for the frequency of the external clock EX_CLK.
Incidentally, the bit width of the counters 43 and 44 need to be designed to is consider the following conditions. For example, whether an adjusted value of the cut-off frequency will just fall within the critical value between filtering out and not filtering out, or whether the clock filter 42 may filter erroneously the input clock CLK_IN at least once during multiple filtering. Because the above-mentioned conditions may cause performance of the system to deteriorate, and even the second count value output by the counter 44 is wrong due to the missing input clock CLK_IN, the counters 43 and 44 with more bits are usually used to observe the filtering conditions for several times to ensure that the input clock CLK_IN input continuously passes the clock filter 42 successfully before the cut-off frequency reaches the filter frequency.
In an embodiment of the present disclosure, the clock filter 42 can adopt the clock filter structured and implemented by the pulse generator 3 in
It should be noted that in another embodiment, it can be designed that the counter 44 counts to the second specific count value. The controller 45 pulls the enable signal CLK_EN to a low logic level to disable the reference clock generator to generate the reference clock as the first clock. Next, the controller 45 takes the first count value of the counter 43, and calculates the absolute difference value between the second value and the first value is less than or equal to the specific absolute difference value, and the controlling signal ADJ is generated accordingly. Moreover, the controller 45 obtains the first count value and calculates the absolute difference value after the reference clock generator is disabled and a second specific time is elapsed. The second specific time can be one or two cycles, and the present disclosure is not limited thereby. The first specific count value can be the same or different from the second specific count value, and the first specific time can be the same or different from the second specific time. In fact, the design depends on the user's situation. As long as make sure that the count values of the counter 43 and 44 before being taken out by the controller 45, there is no overflow problem.
Referring to
The adjustable voltage regulator REG receives the controlling signal ADJ, and generates an operating voltage VDD according to the controlling signal ADJ to the delay unit DLU and the logic circuit. The delay chain DL5 is configured to delay the clock CLK for a delay time to generate a delay clock. The logic circuit is configured to generate a pulse P_OUT according to the clock CLK and the delay clock. The individual delay time of each of the delay unit DLU and the logic circuit are controlled by the operating voltage. Therefore, the delay time of the clock CLK passing through the delay chain DL5 is related to the operating voltage VDD determined by the controlling signal ADJ, and the delay time of the clock CLK passing through the delay chain DL5 will affect the cut-off frequency of the clock filter structured and implemented by the pulse generator 5 in
Different from the manner of the prior art, the pulse generator 5 in
Then, referring to
The inverting unit INV2 generates the inverted input clock of the input clock CLK_IN. An adjustable voltage regulator REG1 of the pulse generator 61 generates a first operating voltage VDD1 according to the first controlling signal ADJ1 to a delay chain DLU6 and an AND gate AND7. Moreover, the AND gate AND7 is configured to generate a pulse signal P_OUT1 according to the inverted input clock and a delayed inverted input clock. An adjustable voltage regulator REG2 of the pulse generator 62 generates a second operating voltage VDD2 according to a second controlling signal ADJ2 to a delay chain DLU7 and an AND gate AND8. Moreover, the AND gate AND8 is configured to generate a pulse signal P_OUT2 according to the input clock and the delayed input clock. The set input terminal and the reset input terminal of the set-reset flip-flop 63 receive the pulse signals P_OUT1 and P_OUT2 respectively to generate a second clock CLK_OUT at its non-inverting input terminal.
Although in this embodiment, the first operating voltage VDD1 and the second operating voltage VDD2 are provided by the adjustable voltage regulator REG1 and REG2, the present disclosure is not limited thereto. The above method takes the error of the manufacturing process into consideration, so the two adjustable voltage regulators REG1 and REG2 are adopted. If the process error is not large, it can be designed to share one adjustable voltage regulator. That is, the two adjustable voltage regulators REG1 and REG2 are the same adjustable voltage regulator, and the first controlling signal ADJ1 and the second controlling signal ADJ2 are the same as each other.
As stated above, the clock filter device provided by the embodiments of the present disclosure can dynamically adjust the cut-off frequency so that the cut-off frequency can be prevented from being affected by process parameters, voltage and temperature of the. Particularly, the clock filter device can prevent hackers from drafting the cut-off frequency by changing the voltage and temperature. On the other hand, the clock filter of the clock filter device can be designed as that the cut-off frequency is related to the operating voltage. Moreover, the adjustable voltage regulator is only allowed to provide the operating voltage to a small number of digital circuits of the clock filter, so as to form a capacitor-less circuit structure. In this way, the clock filter does not need to have the design of exposing the pins of the external capacitor, and can avoid providing the path of the input attack voltage to hackers, so it can increase the security of the system.
It should be understood that the examples and embodiments described herein are for illustrative purpose only, and various modification or change in view of them will be suggested to those skilled in the art, and will be included in the spirit and scope of this application and the appendix within the scope of the claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 110142159 | Nov 2021 | TW | national |
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11487317 | Mohan | Nov 2022 | B1 |
| 20220247411 | Lan | Aug 2022 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20230155582 A1 | May 2023 | US |
