Patent Grant
11632114
The following prior applications are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety for all purposes:
U.S. Patent Publication 2011/0268225 of application Ser. No. 12/784,414, filed May 20, 2010, naming Harm Cronie and Amin Shokrollahi, entitled “Orthogonal Differential Vector Signaling” (hereinafter “Cronie I”).
U.S. Patent Publication 2011/0302478 of application Ser. No. 12/982,777, filed Dec. 30, 2010, naming Harm Cronie and Amin Shokrollahi, entitled “Power and Pin Efficient Chip-to-Chip Communications with Common-Mode Resilience and SSO Resilience” (hereinafter “Cronie II”).
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/030,027, filed Feb. 17, 2011, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,649,445, granted Feb. 11, 2014, naming Harm Cronie, Amin Shokrollahi and Armin Tajalli, entitled “Methods and Systems for Noise Resilient, Pin-Efficient and Low Power Communications with Sparse Signaling Codes” (hereinafter “Cronie III”).
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/176,657, filed Jul. 5, 2011, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,401,828, granted Jul. 26, 2016, naming Harm Cronie and Amin Shokrollahi, entitled “Methods and Systems for Low-power and Pin-efficient Communications with Superposition Signaling Codes” (hereinafter “Cronie IV”).
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/542,599, filed Jul. 5, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,593,305, granted Nov. 26, 2013, naming Armin Tajalli, Harm Cronie, and Amin Shokrollahi entitled “Methods and Circuits for Efficient Processing and Detection of Balanced Codes” (hereafter called “Tajalli I”.)
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/842,740, filed Mar. 15, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,300,503, granted Mar. 29, 2016, naming Brian Holden, Amin Shokrollahi and Anant Singh, entitled “Methods and Systems for Skew Tolerance in and Advanced Detectors for Vector Signaling Codes for Chip-to-Chip Communication”, hereinafter identified as [Holden I].
U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/946,574, filed Feb. 28, 2014, naming Amin Shokrollahi, Brian Holden, and Richard Simpson, entitled “Clock Embedded Vector Signaling Codes”, hereinafter identified as [Shokrollahi I].
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/612,241, filed Aug. 4, 2015, now U S. Pat. No. 9,100,232, granted Aug. 4, 2015, naming Amin Shokrollahi, Ali Hormati, and Roger Ulrich, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Low Power Chip-to-Chip Communications with Constrained ISI Ratio”, hereinafter identified as [Shokrollahi II].
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/895,206, filed May 15, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,288,082, granted Mar. 15, 2016 naming Roger Ulrich and Peter Hunt, entitled “Circuits for Efficient Detection of Vector Signaling Codes for Chip-to-Chip Communications using Sums of Differences”, hereinafter identified as [Ulrich I].
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/816,896, filed Aug. 3, 2015, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,461,862, granted Oct. 4, 2016, naming Brian Holden and Amin Shokrollahi, entitled “Orthogonal Differential Vector Signaling Codes with Embedded Clock”, hereinafter identified as [Holden II].
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/926,958, filed Oct. 29, 2015, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,577,815, granted Feb. 21, 2017, naming Richard Simpson, Andrew Stewart, and Ali Hormati, entitled “Clock Data Alignment System for Vector Signaling Code Communications Link”, hereinafter identified as [Stewart I].
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/925,686, filed Oct. 28, 2015, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,557,760, granted Jan. 31, 2017, naming Armin Tajalli, entitled “Advanced Phase Interpolator”, hereinafter identified as [Tajalli II].
U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/286,717, filed Jan. 25, 2016, naming Armin Tajalli, entitled “Voltage Sampler Driver with Enhanced High-Frequency Gain”, hereinafter identified as [Tajalli III].
U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/288,717, filed Apr. 22, 2016, naming Armin Tajalli, entitled “High Performance Phase Locked Loop”, hereinafter identified as [Tajalli IV].
The following additional references to prior art have been cited in this application:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,509,773, filed Apr. 30, 2001 by Buchwald et al., entitled “Phase interpolator device and method” (hereafter called [Buchwald].
“Linear phase detection using two-phase latch”, A. Tajalli, et al., IEE Electronic Letters, 2003, (hereafter called [Tajalli V].)
“A Low-Jitter Low-Phase-Noise 10-GHz Sub-Harmonically Injection-Locked PLL With Self-Aligned DLL in 65-nm CMOS Technology”, Hong-Yeh Chang, Yen-Liang Yeh, Yu-Cheng Liu, Meng-Han Li, and Kevin Chen, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol 62, No. 3, March 2014 pp. 543-555, (hereafter called [Chang et al.])
“Low Phase Noise 77-GHz Fractional-N PLL with DLL-based Reference Frequency Multiplier for FMCW Radars”, Herman Jalli Ng, Rainer Stuhlberger, Linus Maurer, Thomas Sailer, and Andreas Stelzer, Proceedings of the 6th European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference, 10-11 Oct. 2011, pp. 196-199, (hereafter called [Ng et al.])
“Design of Noise-Robust Clock and Data Recovery using an Adaptive-Bandwidth Mixed PLL/DLL”, Han-Yuan Tan, Doctoral Thesis, Harvard University November 2006, (hereafter called [Tan]).
U.S. Pat. No. 7,492,850, filed Aug. 31, 2005 by Christian Ivo Menolfi and Thomas Helmut Toifl, entitled “Phase locked loop apparatus with adjustable phase shift” (hereafter called [Menolfi].)
“A Calibration-Free Fractional-N Ring PLL Using Hybrid Phase/Current-Mode Phase Interpolation Method”, by Romesh Kumar Nandwana et al, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits Vol. 50, No. 4, April 2015, ppg. 882-895, (hereafter called [Nandwana].)
The present invention relates to communications systems circuits generally, and more particularly to obtaining a stable, correctly phased receiver clock signal from a high-speed multi-wire interface used for chip-to-chip communication.
In modern digital systems, digital information has to be processed in a reliable and efficient way. In this context, digital information is to be understood as information available in discrete, i.e., discontinuous values. Bits, collection of bits, but also numbers from a finite set can be used to represent digital information.
In most chip-to-chip, or device-to-device communication systems, communication takes place over a plurality of wires to increase the aggregate bandwidth. A single or pair of these wires may be referred to as a channel or link and multiple channels create a communication bus between the electronic components. At the physical circuitry level, in chip-to-chip communication systems, buses are typically made of electrical conductors in the package between chips and motherboards, on printed circuit boards (“PCBs”) boards or in cables and connectors between PCBs. In high frequency applications, microstrip or stripline PCB traces may be used.
Common methods for transmitting signals over bus wires include single-ended and differential signaling methods. In applications requiring high speed communications, those methods can be further optimized in terms of power consumption and pin-efficiency, especially in high-speed communications. More recently, vector signaling methods have been proposed to further optimize the trade-offs between power consumption, pin efficiency and noise robustness of chip-to-chip communication systems. In those vector signaling systems, digital information at the transmitter is transformed into a different representation space in the form of a vector codeword that is chosen in order to optimize the power consumption, pin-efficiency and speed trade-offs based on the transmission channel properties and communication system design constraints. Herein, this process is referred to as “encoding”. The encoded codeword is communicated as a group of signals from the transmitter to one or more receivers. At a receiver, the received signals corresponding to the codeword are transformed back into the original digital information representation space. Herein, this process is referred to as “decoding”.
Regardless of the encoding method used, the received signals presented to the receiving device must be sampled (or their signal value otherwise recorded) at intervals best representing the original transmitted values, regardless of transmission channel delays, interference, and noise. This Clock and Data Recovery (CDR) not only must determine the appropriate sample timing, but must continue to do so continuously, providing dynamic compensation for varying signal propagation conditions.
Many known CDR systems utilize a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) or Delay-Locked Loop (DLL) to synthesize a local receive clock having an appropriate frequency and phase for accurate receive data sampling.
To reliably detect the data values transmitted over a communications system, a receiver must accurately measure the received signal value amplitudes at carefully selected times. Various methods are known to facilitate such receive measurements, including reception of one or more dedicated clock signals associated with the transmitted data stream, extraction of clock signals embedded within the transmitted data stream, and synthesis of a local receive clock from known attributes of the communicated data stream.
In general, the receiver embodiments of such timing methods are described as Clock-Data Recovery (CDR), often based on Phase-Lock Loop (PLL) or Delay-Locked Loop (DLL) synthesis of a local receive clock having the desired frequency and phase characteristics.
In both PLL and DLL embodiments, a Phase Detector compares the relative phase (and in some variations, the relative frequency) of a received reference signal and a local clock signal to produce an error signal, which is subsequently used to correct the phase and/or frequency of the local clock source and thus minimize the error. As this feedback loop behavior will lead to a given PLL embodiment producing a fixed phase relationship (as examples, 0 degrees or 90 degrees of phase offset) between the reference signal and the local clock, an additional fixed or variable phase adjustment is often introduced to permit the phase offset to be set to a different desired value (as one example, 45 degrees of phase offset) to facilitate receiver data detection.
Methods and systems are described for receiving, at a data-driven phase comparator circuit, a plurality of data signals in parallel from a plurality of multi-input comparators (MICs) connected to a multi-wire bus, wherein at least one MIC is connected to at least three wires of the multi-wire bus, and one or more phases of a local oscillator signal, the data-driven phase comparator circuit comprising a plurality of partial phase comparators, generating a plurality of partial phase-error signals using the partial phase comparators, each partial phase-error signal generated by receiving (i) a corresponding phase of the local oscillator signal and (ii) a corresponding data signal of the plurality of data signals and responsive to a determination that a transition occurred in the corresponding data signal, generating the partial phase-error signal based on a comparison of the corresponding phase of the local oscillator signal and the corresponding data signal, and generating a composite phase-error signal by summing the plurality of partial phase error signals, the composite phase-error signal for setting a local oscillator generating the one or more phases of the local oscillator signal in a lock condition.
Embodiments are described in which the Phase Detection and phase adjustment elements are combined, leading to lower circuit node capacitance and reduced circuit delays, these improvements in turn enabling increased loop stability and improved PLL lock characteristics, including increased loop lock bandwidth leading to lower clock jitter and improved power supply noise rejection.
Embodiments are also described in which a Delay-Locked Loop is used to convert the received reference clock signal into multiple reference clock phases, converting the PLL phase comparison operation into multiple comparisons made between a reference clock phase and a local clock phase. A summation or weighted summation of the multiple comparison results is then used as the error feedback signal for the PLL. A further embodiment is described in which multiple comparisons are made between a single received reference clock phase and multiple local clock phases, with the weighted sum of the multiple comparison results used as the error feedback term for the PLL. In at least one such further embodiment, said weighted sums comprise a two dimensional time domain filter.
As described in [Cronie I], [Cronie II], [Cronie III] and [Cronie IV], vector signaling codes may be used to produce extremely high bandwidth data communications links, such as between two integrated circuit devices in a system. As illustrated by the embodiment of
Individual symbols, e.g. transmissions on any single communications channel, may utilize multiple signal levels, often three or more. Operation at channel rates exceeding 10 Gbps may further complicate receive behavior by requiring deeply pipelined or parallelized signal processing, precluding reception methods that include the previous received value to be known as the current value is being received.
Embodiments described herein can also be applied to prior art permutation sorting methods not covered by the vector processing methods of [Cronie II], [Cronie III], [Cronie IV], and/or [Tajalli I]. More generally, embodiments may apply to any communication or storage methods requiring coordination of multiple channels or elements of the channel to produce a coherent aggregate result.
Receiver Data Detection
To provide context for the following examples, one typical high-speed receiver embodiment [Stewart I] is used for illustrative purposes, without limitation.
As illustrated in
As described in [Tajalli I], [Holden I] and [Ulrich I], vector signaling codes may be efficiently detected by linearly combining sets of input signals using Multi-Input comparators or mixers (MIC). For the 5b6w code used by the example receiver, five such mixers acting on weighted subsets of the six received data input signals will detect the five data bits without need of further decoding. One additional mixer acting on combinations of the two received clock signals will similarly detect the clock signal. In
Because of the high data rates involved, multiple parallel phases of receive processing are shown in the example receiver. In one embodiment, the five detected data signals MIC0-MIC4 are processed in four parallel phases of receive data processing, each phase 230 including five data samplers and subsequent buffering, followed by recombination of the four phase outputs into a received data stream, shown in
Clock Recovery circuits (also known in the art as Clock Data Recovery or CDR) support such sampling measurements by extracting timing information, either from the data lines themselves or from dedicated clock signal inputs, and utilize that extracted information to generate clock signals to control the time interval used by the data line sampling device(s). The actual clock extraction may be performed using well known circuits such as a Phase Locked Loop (PLL) or Delay Locked Loop (DLL), which in their operation may also generate higher frequency internal clocks, multiple clock phases, etc. in support of receiver operation. In the embodiment of
Other embodiments may forgo the dedicated wires used to communicate a separate clock signal, and instead be configured to have the receiver extract a clock from transitions occurring on the data lines themselves. As is well understood in the art, successful application of this technique requires a sufficiently large transition density on the data lines (which may be alternatively interpreted as requiring a sufficiently small interval between transitions,) and sufficient free-running frequency stability within the PLL to maintain accurate data sample timing during non-transition intervals. [Shokrollahi I] describes suitable vector signaling codes having such guaranteed transition density. Alternatively, known art transition-enforcing encoding such as the commonly utilized 8b10b and 64b66b codes may be applied to the data stream (or data streams of individual subchannels) to ensure subsequent transitions in the vector signal code elements on each subchannel to insure a guaranteed minimum transition density at the receiver.
PLL Overview
Phase Locked Loops are well represented in the literature. A typical PLL is composed of a phase detector that compares an external reference signal to an internal clock signal, a low pass filter that smooths the resulting error value to produce a clock control signal, and a variable frequency clock source (typically, a Voltage Controlled Oscillator or VCO) controlled by the smoothed error value, producing the internal clock signal presented to the phase detector. In a well-know variation, such a PLL design may incorporate a clock frequency divider between the VCO and the phase detector, allowing a higher-frequency clock output to be phase locked to a lower-frequency reference signal.
In an alternative embodiment, the variable frequency clock source is replaced by a variable delay element, its (optionally multiple tapped) outputs thus representing one or more successive time-delayed versions of the original input signal rather than successive cycles of an oscillator to be phase compared to the reference input signal. For the purposes of this document, such Delay Locked Loops (DLL) are considered functionally equivalent to a PLL in such an application, particularly in regard to composed elements of phase detector, phase interpolator, and charge pump.
Numerous forms of phase detectors are known to the art. A simple XOR gate as in
The more complex state machine phase detector of
As shown in
As will be recognized by those familiar with the art, comparable functional operation may be obtained regardless of the phase detector type incorporated in a PLL design, thus to first approximation phase detector choice is not limiting. Secondary design behaviors, including lock time, stability, power consumption, etc. must also be considered as part of the design process.
Receiver Clock Recovery
The example receiver utilizes a PLL embodiment as shown in
In one embodiment, a ring oscillator 340 composed of a sequence of identical gates in a closed loop is used as the internal Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) timing source for the PLL. The VCO frequency is varied by analog adjustment of at least one of: gate propagation delay, inter-gate rise and fall time, and gate switching threshold within the ring oscillator. This may be implemented via switched capacitor banks, where a digital control signal is applied to selective place capacitive elements in parallel and/or series combinations to alter an RC time constant, as one non-limiting example. Still further, a current source that drives a gate of the ring oscillator may be increased or decreased to alter the output switching rise-time/fall-time, and thereby adjust the effective delay. Outputs taken at equal intervals (i.e. separated by equal numbers of ring oscillator gates) along the sequence of gates comprising the ring oscillator provide the four data phase sampling clocks, herein identified as the 0, 90, 180, and 270 degree clocks.
In one embodiment, the ring oscillator is composed of eight identical sets of logic gates (e.g., a set of inverter circuits), thus the phase difference from one such set to the next is 45 degrees. In this embodiment, the 0, 90, 180, and 270 degree outputs may be obtained, as examples, from the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth outputs. As these clocks are cyclical, the final tap may be considered as logically adjacent to the initial tap, a 0 degree and a 360 degree phase offset being equivalent. As many variations of such designs are known in the art, neither the number of elements in the ring oscillator nor the specific taps at which particular outputs are made should be construed as implying a limitation. As one example, the location of the 0 degree tap is arbitrary, as one familiar with the art will recognize that normal PLL behavior will phase align the ring oscillator with the external phase reference regardless of its initial phase. Similarly, equivalent designs may be obtained in which the output clock phases do not have square wave duty cycles; as one example being produced by the action of AND or OR gates with inputs from different tap locations. In the example receiver, it is desired that the VCO operate at a multiple of the received reference clock frequency, thus Frequency Divider 350 divides the VCO outputs by a comparable amount prior to the Phase Detector. In one embodiment, binary (factor of two) dividers are used at 350 to obtain the correct sampling clock rate. In another embodiment, no divider is utilized and the VCO outputs are presented to the phase interpolator directly.
Each of the four phases of sampling clocks is appropriately timed to sample received data for one of the four parallel processing phases. In particular, internal clock ph000 is aligned to optimally trigger data samplers in the phase0 phase of processing, clock ph090 in phase1, clock ph180 in phase2, and clock ph270 in phase3.
To allow the overall phase of the locked PLL signals to be offset from the reference clock input phase, the local clock output presented to the phase comparator is obtained from phase interpolator 360, the output phase of which is controllably intermediate between its input clock phases. Thus, the PLL may lock with its fixed phase relationship, while the internal clock signals obtained from ring oscillator 340 will be offset from that fixed phase by the phase delay amount introduced by phase interpolator 350, as controlled by signal Phase offset correction generated by clock/data phase control logic 370. Phase interpolators are known in the art, examples being provided by [Buchwald I] and [Tajalli II].
In one embodiment, phase interpolator 360 receives multiple clock phases from the ring oscillator 340 having 90 degree phase differences. Said phase interpolator may be controlled to select two adjacent clock input phases and then to interpolate between them so as to produce an output at a chosen phase offset between those selected two values. For purposes of description, it may be assumed that a phase detector design is used which drives the PLL to lock with a zero phase differential between the two phase detector inputs. Thus, continuing the example, applying the 0 and 90 degree clock phases as inputs to the phase interpolator allows adjustment such that the PLL leads the reference clock input by between 0 and 90 degrees.
It will be apparent that equivalent results with comparable phase offsets may be obtained using other pairs of degree clocks and/or other phase detector designs, which as previously described may lock with different phase differentials than that of the present example. Thus neither the particular phase clocks chosen nor the particular phase detector design described herein are limiting.
In the known art, [Nandwana] describes a Fractional-N clock multiplying PLL in which a single reference clock is phase compared to two local clocks derived using different integer divisor ratios, with interpolation between the two phase error results dynamically chosen to cancel the phase quantization error.
Phase Detector with Interpolator
As communication channel data rates increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain acceptable PLL lock range and accuracy, as inherent and parasitic circuit node capacitances introduce circuit delays and constrain the effective loop response bandwidth. An embodiment providing improved response characteristics suitable for such high speed operation is illustrated in
As with conventional designs, the PLL VCO (or a clock divider driven by said VCO) provides the local oscillator inputs to phase interpolator elements 510 and 515, which together set the effective local clock phase. Four local oscillator phases with 90 degree offset are shown i.e. equivalent to two phases in quadrature relationship and their complimentary signals and thus identified as +I, +Q, and −I, −Q, permitting a full 360 degree or “four quadrant” phase adjustment. Other embodiments may utilize as few as two local oscillator phases, may use oscillator phases having other than 90 degree phase differences, or may select clock phases from an input set of more than four; as one non-limiting example, choosing at least two clock phases to be interpolated between from an input set of eight clock phases.
In a first embodiment, phase interpolator element 510 includes four mixing elements, each mixing element comprising a differential transistor pair and a controlled current source, with a common differential output driven by the four mixing elements in parallel. Thus, configuration of current source IA(i) controls the amount of local oscillator phase +I presented to the common output ckp; similarly, current source IA(−i) controls the amount of complimentary output phase −I in the output, IA(q) controls the amount of +Q, and IA(−q) controls the amount of −Q. It will be readily apparent to one familiar with the art that configuration of the four current sources can produce an output clock at Ckp having any desired phase relationship to the PLL local clock input.
Similarly, phase interpolator element 515 current sources IB(i), IB(−i), IB(q), and IB(−q) may be configured to obtain an output clock at Ckn having any desired phase relationship to the PLL local clock input. Typically, CkPLLp and CkPLLn will be configured to have complimentary relationships so as to provide phase detector 520 with balanced and complimentary positive- and negative-going current amplitudes. However, configuration with non-complimentary IA and D3 values may be performed to obtain particular results. As one example offered without limitation, an embodiment separately adjusting IA and IB values might obtain higher resolution phase adjustment, compared to an embodiment maintaining perfectly complimentary IA and IB values.
The second input to the Phase Detector 520 is external reference clock CkRef+/CkRef−, producing the phase error output currents VCOctl+/VCOctl−. In one advanced embodiment, the two external reference clocks are of opposing polarity but not necessarily complementary phase, thus the positive polarity comparison and negative polarity comparison represent different phase comparisons. Such an advanced embodiment may be combined with non-complimentary IA and IB bias configurations, providing independent adjustment of local clock phase during those different phase comparisons. That is, in one embodiment, the CkRef input at the top of PD 520 is a first phase selected from the reference clock phases available in the circuit, and the IA currents are adjusted to provide a corresponding interpolated phase offset from the first selected phase, and the CkRef input at the bottom of PD 520 is a second phase selected from the reference clock phases available in the circuit, and the IB currents are adjusted to provide a corresponding interpolated phase offset from the second selected phase, wherein the amount of the relative phase offsets are the same.
Configuration of phase interpolator current source values may be performed by external control logic, including without limitation, a hardware configuration register, control processor output register, and hardware CDR adjustment logic.
Phase Detector 520 in the embodiment of
Embodiments for which IA=IB+shift are a special case of a matrix phase comparator in which there are two phase comparators. The first phase comparator (NMOS-side XOR) compares the phase of reference with one set of VCO feedback phases, and a second phase comparator (PMOS-side XOR) that compares the reference clock phase with a second set of VCO feedback phases. Unlike the [Nandwana] phase comparator, the sets of VCO feedback phases here are of the same frequency, differing only in phase, and the current source values chosen to interpolate between the phase comparison results will typically be static rather than dynamically chosen on a cycle-by-cycle basis. Matrix phase comparator embodiments are described in further detail below. Therefore, in some embodiments, a PMOS+NMOS interpolator may be treated as two independent PIs, while in [Nandwana], there is only one PI. Further, if a meaningful difference to the weighs of PMOS-side and NMOS-side, then a small matrix PLL may be constructed that has extended bandwidth. In at least one embodiments, there is a 20% gain difference between the two sides, in which BW may enhance by the same factor.
In some embodiments, a folded structure as shown in
In some embodiments, the second 180 degrees (4) may be used to provide circuit balance feedback, as shown in
The phase detector of [Tajalli V] may alternatively be used at 520 or 1220, providing equivalent phase detection with enhanced signal headroom in embodiments utilizing low power supply voltages. Other phase detectors, including all variations shown in
As one example of such alternative embodiment, the State Machine Phase/Frequency Detector of
Substituting the clocked latch circuit of
It should be noted that in this one embodiment the majority of phase interpolator 715 is functionally disabled and retained only to preserve the same parasitic load characteristics as are presented by active phase interpolator 725, to maximize circuit symmetry and maintain balanced loading characteristics to minimize secondary effects such as detection bias and drift.
Integrated Phase Detector, Interpolation, and Charge Pump
As previously described, PLL phase detector outputs are typically used to drive a charge pump circuit, the output of which is an analog error signal used to control the VCO. The described improvement from reduced capacitance and resulting higher circuit speed in integrating the PLL phase detector and clock adjustment phase interpolator may be further extended by also integrating elements of the charge pump in the same manner.
In this combined embodiment, the charge pump control signals UPp, UPn, DOWNp, and DOWNn provided by the embodiment shown in
Second order PLLs (called also charge pump PLLs) have been widely used to implement low noise and high performance synthesizers, clock generators, and clock and data recovery systems. A phase detector (PD), or a phase-frequency detector (PFD) produces a signal proportional to the phase difference between the reference clock (CkRef) and the feedback clock (CkPLL). The resulting error is integrated by charge-pump circuit (CPC) and loop filter (LF) to produce the proper control voltage for the voltage (or sometimes current) controlled oscillator (VCO). An exemplary LF is an RC circuit as shown in
Other embodiments may be obtained by equivalent combination of phase comparator, phase interpolator, and charge pump elements.
Oversampling of Input Reference Signal
The asymmetric use of the phase interpolators in, as one example,
In the known art, [Tan] described a combined DLL/PLL structure, in which the voltage controlled delay line incorporated in the PLL VCO is duplicated as an input delay line acting on the reference clock input, and controlled by a single feedback error signal. [Ng] and [Chang] also describe use of a front-end DLL to serve as a frequency multiplier to facilitate generation of very high frequency clocks.
However, if such a controlled delay line is tapped, and so configured that the differential delay between taps is proportional to the time between received clock edges, a received clock passing through such a delay line produces a resulting set of outputs which take on some of the characteristics of a multiphase clock. As one example offered without limitation, the equal-interval outputs of a four tap delay line having an overall delay comparable to the reference clock period will provide outputs having similar characteristic to quadrature phased clock signals. Continuing this example, if each such output is phase compared to an appropriately-selected local clock phase, a series of phase error results will be produced which may be combined to produce a more accurate aggregate clock error signal for the PLL VCO. The delayed versions of the receive clock represent additional opportunities for phase comparison with a clock derived from the VCO, thus providing a higher update rate for the controlled loop, and thus improved PLL loop bandwidth leading to reduced jitter and better noise immunity. That is, using this technique, the update rate of the loop will be increased, which in turn enables the circuit to track and correct the effects of noise and jitter at higher frequencies.
For the delayed phase comparisons to provide meaningful information to the PLL, the delay intervals provided by the delay line must be coordinated with the period between local clock phases, with such controls giving the delay element many of the aspects of a Delay-Locked Loop (DLL.) As seen in the block diagram of
Within PLL 300, the previous simple phase comparison (320 of
In some system environments, the described multi-phase reference clock may be directly available from the receiver, as one example where the communications protocol incorporates multiple clock signals.
The additional feedback information provided by the multiple comparison operations may also be obtained without the previously-described DLL front end.
XOR(CKREF, VCO'000)
XOR(CKREF, VCO'045)
XOR(CKREF, VCO'090)
XOR(CKREF, VCO'135)
As shown in
It should be noted that in array-XOR embodiments, some comparisons might be done using XNORs. As such, an XOR or XNOR for different phase comparisons may be selected carefully to ensure system stability.
In at least one embodiment, the weights of said summation are configured such that they decline in proportion to the timing difference of the comparison clock phase relative to the PLL “normal lock” phase. As one example offered without limitation, if ph090 is the normal lock phase of the PLL, the comparison of ph090 and the received reference signal is weighted 1; comparisons of ph045 and ph135 (e.g. a half tap offset from the normal lock phase) are weighted ½; comparison of the received reference signal and ph000 and 180 (one tap offset from the normal lock phase) are weighed ¼; etc. These various weighted comparison results are then summed to produce a composite signal which when low pass filtered 330, is the Error value controlling PLL VCO 340.
In one embodiment utilizing multiple phase comparators, the deterministic jitter produced by the multiple phase comparisons was seen to occur at a 12.5 GHz rate with equal phase detector weights. Even though the amount of jitter was very small and the jitter rate was well above the loop filter cutoff frequency, the deterministic jitter was significantly reduced with the described weight adjustments, in which weight magnitudes decline in proportion to their offset distance from the primary reference signal sample. In some embodiments, different weighted values are used in a comparator circuit to construct a discrete time domain filter. This property can be used to simplify the design of analog filter 330. For example, with proper weighting values one might construct a discrete time domain zero in the transfer function that provides conditions to make the loop robust.
As with previously described examples, other embodiments may be obtained by equivalent combination of phase comparator, phase interpolator, and charge pump elements.
Matrix Phase Comparisons
In some embodiments, BW of a PLL is limited by the update rate of the loop, which is determined by the frequency of the reference clock. Certainly, using all the available sources of information in system can substantially enhance the efficiency of the correction loop. For example, every phase of the VCO provides a single sample of the oscillator phase during each cycle of the reference clock period, while looking into all the phases of the VCO can provide more detailed information in the time span of Tref shown in
The multi-phase comparison of multiple phases derived from a received reference signal and multiple phases derived from the local PLL clock may be generalized into a matrix phase comparator, one embodiment of which is shown in
In a full matrix comparison, each of M phases derived from the received reference signal is separately phase compared with each of the N phases derived from the local PLL clock. Each resulting phase error signal is weighted by a configured or predetermined amount, with all (M*N) weighted results summed to produce an aggregate error result. An example of one partial phase comparator is shown in
One familiar with the art will observe that the previously-described multi-phase comparator 920 of
In at least one embodiment, the matrix comparator of
Assuming a four phase feedback, each phase comparator produces a correction signal which eventually will be accumulated onto the capacitor of the loop filter. While under lock condition the integral of the correction signal illustrated in the bottom waveform of
A multi-phase or array phase comparator as described above opens new doors to design low noise and wide-band PLLs. Described below are different examples of improving performance of PLLs using array phase comparators.
In some embodiments, array phase comparators provide double edge phase comparison: Using double edges (rising and falling edges) of the reference clock provides the possibility to make two separate phase corrections at every cycle. Hence, the BW of PLL can be potentially increased by a factor of two. In case the duty-cycle of the input reference is not 50%, it will create some ripples at 2·Fref and can increase deterministic jitter (DJ) of the oscillator. Indeed, as the ripple frequency is fairly high, with proper loop filter design it will be possible to reject major part of this DJ.
In some embodiments, array phase comparators provide Inter-VCO-phase comparison. To detect and correct duty-cycle and quadrature mismatch errors (QME), generally designers make comparison between different phases of a VCO. For such correction, the error signal resulted from inter-VCO-phase comparison is heavily filtered and a very low frequency correction signal is applied in a proper point of the system in order to correct for duty-cycle distortion or quadrature mismatch. Embodiments described above may be expanded to detect and correct random jitter of VCO.
Some embodiments of the two-dimensional discrete-time phase comparator provide the possibility to implement a discrete-time filter in front of PLL. This opportunity can be used to implement special transfer functions in order to improve the performance of system. For example, by proper choice of digital filter coefficients (e.g., the weights described above), one may detect and suppress phase noise at special frequencies in order to improve tolerance of system against supply or substrate noise. Some embodiments provide Phase Interpolation: There are different approaches for rotating phase of oscillator in a PLL and adjusting the exact timing of recovered clock based on system requirements. In some embodiments, a diagonal comparator array structure provides the possibility to rotate a phase of the oscillator with respect to the phase of reference clock.
Suppose for a given reference clock CkRefm and a given local oscillator phase CkPLLn, W(m,n)=a for (m−n)=0, W(m,n)=b for |m−n|=1, and zero for the rest of m and n values (noting that n must be considered modulo the number of local oscillator phases, because of its previously-described cyclic nature. Assuming that a+b=c, and c has a fixed value. In this case, by changing a, and b=c−a, it is possible to rotate the phase of VCO. If lock points corresponding to [a,b]=[c,0] and [a,b]=[0,c] are Ta and Tb, respectively, then as depicted in
The same argument is valid for any other combination of the two consecutive sets of |m−n|=k and |m−n|=k+1, where k is an integer number smaller than the size of phase comparator matrices. Suppose a and b are the weights for two consecutive sets of diagonal comparators k and k+1. If a and b are controlled digitally with two independent sets of Nb bits, then the resulted phase interpolator can exhibit Nb+1 bits of resolution. Illustrated in
An example of diagonal interpolation is given below, where the main diagonal has a weight a assigned to each element and where an adjacent diagonal has a weight b assigned to each element:
Note that due to the cyclical nature of adjacent columns, a weight on the element of b is included at the bottom-left most element of the matrix. Thus, it always remains that an equal number of elements will contain a weight of a and b, providing a linear and symmetric phase relationship, as shown in
In an alternative embodiment, interpolation can be performed between two adjacent rows or two adjacent columns of a matrix. The concept is very similar to the diagonal embodiment above, in that a first column may have a first fixed phase offset, while a second column has a second fixed phase offset. A weight a may be assigned to each element in the first column and a weight b may be assigned to each element in the second column, where a+b=c, as described above. Also, it should be noted that the left-most columns and right-most columns should be considered adjacent due to the cyclical nature of the local oscillator clocks. Thus, interpolating the weights a and b in each column will provide an intermediate phase in between the first and second fixed phases.
Phase Comparator Architecture
The flexibility and architectural simplicity of a matrix comparator may be offset by the potential complexity of its embodiment, in both the number of comparators used to fill an array of M×N elements, and in the implementation of the required weighting or scaling factor for each of those elements.
As a non-limiting example, a PLL utilizing a matrix comparison of each of eight VCO clock phases against a single reference clock input includes eight comparator elements, each associated with a configurable or adjustable scaling factor, and one summation node to produce a combined error result. In one such embodiment shown in
As the distributed capacitance of the DAC structure in the signal path may unreasonably degrade signal integrity, an alternative embodiment moves the DAC out of the signal path. In this second embodiment, a DAC element 1116 is used to scale or adjust supply voltages to a digital buffer element 1115 as in
Circuit applications requiring low power operation may be incompatible with resistive DAC usage, thus a further embodiment utilizes switched capacitor technology. In this third embodiment of
An alternative fourth embodiment shown as
During high-speed simulation of that fourth embodiment, transient output variations were observed within the gate propagation time of the XOR phase detector element, that is, at a finer granularity than the overall behavior of the XOR gate as a whole. It was noted that an exclusive-OR function may be decomposed into distinct NOT-AND-OR logic elements as described by the well-known Boolean equation (x·
Adjustment of the four signal path impedances by introducing path resistance, scaling transistor dimensions, or directly adjusting current flows may be used to control output amplitude within the overall response of the XOR gate as a whole, thus producing the desired weighing function. As one example, consider each signal path impedance in
Independently adjusting the four segments of each XOR operation may also facilitate the previously-described matrix comparator operations, including interpolation. As one example, two XOR comparators as in
Alternatively, scaled transistors or explicit current source/sink circuits may be used instead of resistors to control current flow; as in the resistive example, different numbers of enabled and disabled parallel current paths may be used to adjust the overall output Iout. the portions of the weighting signal above collectively form the weighting signal t0-t15 for the corresponding partial phase comparator.
The adjustable or configurable elements described herein may be combined with or equivalently be substituted by comparable known art elements, including without limitation R-2R ladder structures controlled by transistor switches, resistive chain structures controlled by transistor switches, equal-value or binary-weighted resistors configured in series- or parallel-connected combination by transistor switches, and fixed and/or configurable current sources and current sinks.
Specific values and quantities described in examples are provided to facilitate explanation, without implying limitation.
Simulations
The steady state response of two different types of phase comparators are shown in
An MCPLL (matrix phase comparator based CPLL) has been designed in a conventional 28-nm CMOS technology. A current steering architecture with KVCO≈20 GHz/V is selected for the VCO. A loop filter as shown in
Data-Driven Phase Comparator
In some embodiments, the above-described matrix phase comparator architecture may be applied to extraction of a clock signal from transitions occurring on multiple data sub-channels, as one example on the various sub-channels of a vector signaling code communicated over a multi-wire bus. In such embodiments, vector signaling codes with guaranteed transition density over time resulting from bit-level encoding, or provided by vector encoding schemes such as taught by [Shokrollahi I] are amenable to such combination.
Considering the multiple data inputs being monitored by such a system, several operational considerations are apparent. First, as any received data bit may remain in either the “1” or “0” state in consecutive unit intervals, only data transitions between those states are relevant to PLL phase. In particular, between any two consecutive unit intervals a transition may or may not occur in any given data bit; indeed, no transition may occur on any data bit in a given clock interval. If a transition does occur, the matrix phase comparator may utilize the timing of that transition to update the PLL clock phase, while if no transition occurs, the PLL clock may be allowed to continue unchanged. If two or more data lines transition in the same clock interval, the timing errors derived from each such transition may be summed, which is consistent with the previously-described matrix phase comparator behavior.
This behavior suggests that a state-machine phase detector may be a suitable candidate for the phase comparison elements of the comparison matrix, as such designs may be configured to respond only to signal transitions rather than signal level, and may be configured to output a “no change” result in the absence of a signal transition. In some embodiments, the partial phase comparators 2712 may take the form of edge-triggered bang-bang detectors configured to generate partial phase-error signals in response to determining a transition occurred. A block diagram of an exemplary edge-triggered bang-bang phase detector is shown in
Another embodiment may incorporate a data signal transition detectors, one example including an XOR gate comparing a data signal with a slightly time delayed copy of the same data signal, for example after passing through a logic buffer gate. Such an embodiment will output a logical pulse at each transition, and the edge of such pulse may be phase compared to a PLL clock edge, using any phase detector as previously described. An advanced embodiment may further incorporate a gating or time windowing function in the partial phase detectors to produce a “no change” error result from any partial phase detector not receiving a data signal transition in a given time interval.
The weights of the individual matrix comparison elements 2710 of matrix phase comparator 2610 may be set uniformly (i.e. with a transition on any data signal equally affecting all clock phases,) or non-uniformly such that particular clock phases are more or less affected. As described in [Tajalli IV], other effects including simulation of phase offsets, introduction of loop time domain zeroes, etc. may be obtained by selective configuration of matrix weighting factors.
In some embodiments, the partial phase-error signals are analog signals formed using respective charge pump circuits. In such embodiments, the method further includes filtering the composite phase-error signal.
In some embodiments, the method further includes introducing, for a given partial phase comparator, a sub-channel specific delay into the corresponding phase of the local oscillator signal, the sub-channel specific delay associated with the data signal received at the given partial phase comparator.
In some embodiments, the comparison of the corresponding phase of the local oscillator signal and the corresponding data signal is formed using a linear edge-triggered phase detector. Alternatively, the comparison of the corresponding phase of the local oscillator signal and the corresponding data signal may be formed using an edge-triggered bang-bang phase detector.
In some embodiments, the method further includes applying a weight to the partial phase-error signal. In some embodiments, the plurality of data signals have a collective transition density above a predetermined threshold. In some embodiments, the method further includes outputting a no-change result in response to determining no transition occurred. In such embodiments, outputting the no-change result includes setting the partial phase comparator in a high-impedance state.
PLL Startup
In many communications environments, the minimum transition density of data signals may be low, thus for relatively long periods of time the PLL oscillator must continue running with no change in frequency. As previously described, selection of a phase detector design capable of being configured to produce a “no change” output in the absence of data transitions helps satisfy this requirement, as does selection of an oscillator with good stability characteristics.
At startup, however, the situation may be quite different. The VCO may start oscillation at very high or very low frequency relative to its desired operating frequency, and the density of transitions received on data lines may be very high, especially if an initialization procedure transmits training patterns or other special data sequence as part of CTLE adjustment or other receiver calibration. Thus, it is possible that PLL lock may take considerable time, or may result in VCO operation at the wrong frequency.
[Tajalli III] describes a “Frequency Lock Assist” for PLL initialization, consisting of an additional phase/frequency detector that can override spurious frequency excursions and force the PLL into a normal operational mode, at which point its normal phase comparator may take over.
The clock signal received from MIC5 in
This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 17/327,512, filed May 21, 2021, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,245,402, granted Feb. 8, 2022, naming Armin Tajalli, entitled “Matrix Phase Interpolator for Phase Locked Loop”, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 16/566,648, filed Sep. 10, 2019, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,018,675, granted May 25, 2021, naming Armin Tajalli, entitled “Matrix Phase Interpolator for Phase Locked Loop”, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 15/602,080, filed May 22, 2017, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,411,922, granted Sep. 10, 2019, naming Ali Hormati and Armin Tajalli, entitled “Data-Driven Phase Detector Element for Phase Locked Loop”, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,411,922, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/395,993, filed Sep. 16, 2016, entitled “Matrix Phase Detector Element for Phase Locked Loop”, all of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety for all purposes.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| 20220166434 A1 | May 2022 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
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| 62395993 | Sep 2016 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Parent | 17327512 | May 2021 | US |
| Child | 17666242 | US | |
| Parent | 16566648 | Sep 2019 | US |
| Child | 17327512 | US | |
| Parent | 15602080 | May 2017 | US |
| Child | 16566648 | US |
