PLL Wikipedia
PLL Wikipedia
PLL Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-locked_loop
Phase-locked loop
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A phase-locked loop or phase lock loop (PLL) is a control system that tries to generate an output signal whose phase is related to the
phase of the input "reference" signal. It is an electronic circuit consisting of a variable frequency oscillator and a phase detector. This
circuit compares the phase of the input signal with the phase of the signal derived from its output oscillator and adjusts the frequency
of its oscillator to keep the phases matched. The signal from the phase detector is used to control the oscillator in a feedback loop.
Frequency is the derivative of phase. Keeping the input and output phase in lock step implies keeping the input and output frequencies
in lock step. Consequently, a phase-locked loop can track an input frequency, or it can generate a frequency that is a multiple of the
input frequency. The former property is used for demodulation, and the latter property is used for indirect frequency synthesis.
Phase-locked loops are widely used in radio, telecommunications, computers and other electronic applications. They may generate
stable frequencies, recover a signal from a noisy communication channel, or distribute clock timing pulses in digital logic designs such
as microprocessors. Since a single integrated circuit can provide a complete phase-locked-loop building block, the technique is widely
used in modern electronic devices, with output frequencies from a fraction of a hertz up to many gigahertz.
Contents
1 Practical analogies
1.1 Automobile race analogy
1.2 Clock analogy
2 History
3 Structure and function
3.1 Variations
3.2 Performance parameters
4 Applications
4.1 Clock recovery
4.2 Deskewing
4.3 Clock generation
4.4 Spread spectrum
4.5 Clock distribution
4.6 Jitter and noise reduction
4.7 Frequency Synthesis
5 Phase-locked loop block diagram
6 Elements
6.1 Phase detector
6.2 Filter
6.3 Oscillator
6.4 Feedback path and optional divider
7 Modeling
7.1 Time domain model
7.2 Linearized phase domain model
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading
Practical analogies
Automobile race analogy
For a practical idea of what is going on, consider an auto race. There are many cars, and each of them wants to go around the track as
fast as possible. Each lap corresponds to a complete cycle, and each car will complete dozens of laps per hour. The number of laps per
hour (a speed) is a frequency, but the number of laps (a distance) corresponds to a phase. At one instant, car 3 may have gone 37.23
laps.
During most of the race, each car is on its own and is trying to beat every other car on the course. However, if there is an accident, a
pace car comes out to set a safe speed. None of the race cars is permitted to pass the pace car (or the race cars in front of them), but
each of the race cars wants to stay as close to the pace car as it can. While it is on the track, the pace car is a reference, and the race
cars become phase-locked loops. Each driver will measure the phase difference (a distance in laps) between him and the pace car. If the
driver is far away, he will increase his engine speed to close the gap. If he's too close to the pace car, he will slow down. The result is all
the race cars lock on to the phase of the pace car. The cars travel around the track in a tight group that is a small fraction of a lap.
Clock analogy
Phase can be proportional to time,[1] so a phase difference can be a time difference. Clocks are, with varying degrees of accuracy,
phase-locked (time-locked) to a master clock.
Left on its own, each clock will mark time at slightly different rates. A wall clock, for example, might be fast by a few seconds per hour
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compared to the reference clock at NIST. Over time, that time difference would become substantial.
To keep his clock in synch, each week the owner compares the time on his wall clock to a more accurate clock (a phase comparison), and
he resets his clock. Left alone, the wall clock will continue to diverge from the reference clock at the same few seconds per hour rate.
Some clocks have a timing adjustment (a fast-slow control). When the owner compared his wall clock's time to the reference time, he
noticed that his clock was too fast. Consequently, he could turn the timing adjust a small amount to make the clock run a little slower. If
things work out right, his clock will be more accurate. Over a series of weekly adjustments, the wall clock's notion of a second would
agree with the reference time (within the wall clock's stability).
An early mechanical version of a phase-locked loop was used in 1921 in the Shortt-Synchronome clock.
History
[2]
Variations
There are several variations of PLLs. Some terms that are used are analog phase-locked loop (APLL) also referred to as a linear phase[8]
locked loop (LPLL), digital phase-locked loop (DPLL), all digital phase-locked loop (ADPLL), and software phase-locked loop (SPLL).
Analog or Linear PLL (LPLL)
Phase detector is an analog multiplier. Loop filter is active or passive. Uses a Voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO).
Digital PLL (DPLL)
An analog PLL with a digital phase detector (such as XOR, edge-trigger JK, phase frequency detector). May have digital divider in
the loop.
All digital PLL (ADPLL)
Phase detector, filter and oscillator are digital. Uses a numerically-controlled oscillator (NCO).
Software PLL (SPLL)
Functional blocks are implemented by software rather than specialized hardware.
Performance parameters
Type and order
Lock range: The frequency range the PLL is able to stay locked. Mainly defined by the VCO range.
Capture range: The frequency range the PLL is able to lock-in, starting from unlocked condition. This range is usually smaller than
the lock range and will depend e.g. on phase detector.
Loop bandwidth: Defining the speed of the control loop.
Transient response: Like overshoot and settling time to a certain accuracy (like 50ppm).
Steady-state errors: Like remaining phase or timing error
Output spectrum purity: Like sidebands generated from a certain VCO tuning voltage ripple.
Phase-noise: Defined by noise energy in a certain frequency band (like 10kHz offset from carrier). Highly dependent on VCO phasenoise, PLL bandwidth, etc.
General parameters: Such as power consumption, supply voltage range, output amplitude, etc.
Applications
Phase-locked loops are widely used for synchronization purposes; in space communications for coherent demodulation and threshold
extension, bit synchronization, and symbol synchronization. Phase-locked loops can also be used to demodulate frequency-modulated
signals. In radio transmitters, a PLL is used to synthesize new frequencies which are a multiple of a reference frequency, with the same
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Clock recovery
Some data streams, especially high-speed serial data streams (such as the raw stream of data from the magnetic head of a disk drive),
are sent without an accompanying clock. The receiver generates a clock from an approximate frequency reference, and then phasealigns to the transitions in the data stream with a PLL. This process is referred to as clock recovery. In order for this scheme to work,
the data stream must have a transition frequently enough to correct any drift in the PLL's oscillator. Typically, some sort of redundant
encoding is used; 8B10B is very common.
Deskewing
If a clock is sent in parallel with data, that clock can be used to sample the data. Because the clock must be received and amplified
before it can drive the flip-flops which sample the data, there will be a finite, and process-, temperature-, and voltage-dependent delay
between the detected clock edge and the received data window. This delay limits the frequency at which data can be sent. One way of
eliminating this delay is to include a deskew PLL on the receive side, so that the clock at each data flip-flop is phase-matched to the
[9]
received clock. In that type of application, a special form of a PLL called a delay-locked loop (DLL) is frequently used.
Clock generation
Many electronic systems include processors of various sorts that operate at hundreds of megahertz. Typically, the clocks supplied to
these processors come from clock generator PLLs, which multiply a lower-frequency reference clock (usually 50 or 100 MHz) up to the
operating frequency of the processor. The multiplication factor can be quite large in cases where the operating frequency is multiple
gigahertz and the reference crystal is just tens or hundreds of megahertz.
Spread spectrum
All electronic systems emit some unwanted radio frequency energy. Various regulatory agencies (such as the FCC in the United States)
put limits on the emitted energy and any interference caused by it. The emitted noise generally appears at sharp spectral peaks (usually
at the operating frequency of the device, and a few harmonics). A system designer can use a spread-spectrum PLL to reduce
interference with high-Q receivers by spreading the energy over a larger portion of the spectrum. For example, by changing the
operating frequency up and down by a small amount (about 1%), a device running at hundreds of megahertz can spread its interference
evenly over a few megahertz of spectrum, which drastically reduces the amount of noise seen on broadcast FM radio channels, which
have a bandwidth of several tens of kilohertz.
Clock distribution
Typically, the reference clock enters the chip and drives a phase locked loop (PLL), which then drives the system's clock distribution.
The clock distribution is usually balanced so that the clock arrives at every endpoint simultaneously. One of those endpoints is the PLL's
feedback input. The function of the PLL is to compare the distributed clock to the incoming reference clock, and vary the phase and
frequency of its output until the reference and feedback clocks are phase and frequency matched.
PLLs are ubiquitousthey tune clocks in systems several feet across, as well as clocks in small portions of individual chips. Sometimes
the reference clock may not actually be a pure clock at all, but rather a data stream with enough transitions that the PLL is able to
recover a regular clock from that stream. Sometimes the reference clock is the same frequency as the clock driven through the clock
distribution, other times the distributed clock may be some rational multiple of the reference.
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constructed with emitter-coupled logic (ECL) elements, at the expense of high power consumption. To keep phase noise low in PLL
[citation needed]
circuits, it is best to avoid saturating logic families such as transistor-transistor logic (TTL) or CMOS.
Another desirable property of all PLLs is that the phase and frequency of the generated clock be unaffected by rapid changes in the
voltages of the power and ground supply lines, as well as the voltage of the substrate on which the PLL circuits are fabricated. This is
called substrate and supply noise rejection. The higher the noise rejection, the better.
To further improve the phase noise of the output, an injection locked oscillator can be employed following the VCO in the PLL.
Frequency Synthesis
In digital wireless communication systems (GSM, CDMA etc.), PLLs are used to provide the local oscillator for up-conversion during
transmission and down-conversion during reception. In most cellular handsets this function has been largely integrated into a single
integrated circuit to reduce the cost and size of the handset. However, due to the high performance required of base station terminals,
the transmission and reception circuits are built with discrete components to achieve the levels of performance required. GSM local
[citation needed]
oscillator modules are typically built with a frequency synthesizer integrated circuit and discrete resonator VCOs.
Frequency synthesizer manufacturers include Analog Devices,[10] National Semiconductor and Texas Instruments. VCO manufacturers
include Sirenza, Z-Communications, Inc. (Z-COMM).
Elements
Phase detector
Main article: phase detector
The two inputs of the phase detector are the reference input and the feedback from the VCO. The PD output controls the VCO such that
the phase difference between the two inputs is held constant, making it a negative feedback system. There are several types of phase
detectors in the two main categories of analog and digital.
Different types of phase detectors have different performance characteristics.
For instance, the frequency mixer produces harmonics that adds complexity in applications where spectral purity of the VCO signal is
important. The resulting unwanted (spurious) sidebands, also called "reference spurs" can dominate the filter requirements and reduce
the capture range and lock time well below the requirements. In these applications the more complex digital phase detectors are used
which do not have as severe a reference spur component on their output. Also, when in lock, the steady-state phase difference at the
inputs using this type of phase detector is near 90 degrees. The actual difference is determined by the DC loop gain.
A bang-bang charge pump phase detector must always have a dead band where the phases of inputs are close enough that the
detector detects no phase error. For this reason, bang-bang phase detectors are associated with significant minimum peak-to-peak jitter,
because of drift within the dead band.[citation needed] However these types, having outputs consisting of very narrow pulses at lock, are
very useful for applications requiring very low VCO spurious outputs. The narrow pulses contain very little energy and are easy to filter
[citation needed]
out of the VCO control voltage. This results in low VCO control line ripple and therefore low FM sidebands on the VCO.
In PLL applications it is frequently required to know when the loop is out of lock. The more complex digital phase-frequency detectors
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usually have an output that allows a reliable indication of an out of lock condition.
Filter
The block commonly called the PLL loop filter (usually a low pass filter) generally has two distinct functions.
The primary function is to determine loop dynamics, also called stability. This is how the loop responds to disturbances, such as changes
in the reference frequency, changes of the feedback divider, or at startup. Common considerations are the range over which the loop
can achieve lock (pull-in range, lock range or capture range), how fast the loop achieves lock (lock time, lock-up time or settling time)
and damping behavior. Depending on the application, this may require one or more of the following: a simple proportion (gain or
attenuation), an integral (low pass filter) and/or derivative (high pass filter). Loop parameters commonly examined for this are the loop's
gain margin and phase margin. Common concepts in control theory including the PID controller are used to design this function.
The second common consideration is limiting the amount of reference frequency energy (ripple) appearing at the phase detector output
that is then applied to the VCO control input. This frequency modulates the VCO and produces FM sidebands commonly called
"reference spurious". The low pass characteristic of this block can be used to attenuate this energy, but at times a band reject "notch"
may also be useful.[citation needed]
The design of this block can be dominated by either of these considerations, or can be a complex process juggling the interactions of the
two. Typical trade-offs are: increasing the bandwidth usually degrades the stability or too much damping for better stability will reduce
the speed and increase settling time. Often also the phase-noise is affected.
Oscillator
Main article: Electronic oscillator
All phase-locked loops employ an oscillator element with variable frequency capability. This can be an analog VCO either driven by
analog circuitry in the case of an APLL or driven digitally through the use of a digital-to-analog converter as is the case for some DPLL
designs. Pure digital oscillators such as a numerically-controlled oscillator are used in ADPLLs.
It should also be noted that the feedback is not limited to a frequency divider. This element can be other elements such as a frequency
multiplier, or a mixer. The multiplier will make the VCO output a sub-multiple (rather than a multiple) of the reference frequency. A
mixer can translate the VCO frequency by a fixed offset. It may also be a combination of these. An example being a divider following a
mixer; this allows the divider to operate at a much lower frequency than the VCO without a loss in loop gain.
Modeling
Time domain model
The equations governing a phase-locked loop with an analog multiplier as the phase detector may be derived as follows. Let the input to
the phase detector be xc(t) and the output of the VCO is xr(t) with frequency r(t), then the output of the phase detector xm(t) is given by
y(t) as
where
The loop filter receives this signal as input and produces an output
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xf(t) = Ffilter(xm(t))
where
When the loop is closed, the output from the loop filter becomes the input to the VCO thus
xc(t) = Acsin(ct).
The output of the phase detector then is:
This can be rewritten into sum and difference components using trigonometric identities:
As an approximation to the behaviour of the loop filter we may consider only the difference frequency being passed with no phase
, then the
can be
change, which enables us to derive a small-signal model of the phase-locked loop. If we can make
approximated by its argument resulting in:
. The phase-locked loop is said to be locked if this is the
case.[11]
Where
This is the form of a classic harmonic oscillator. The denominator can be related to that of a second order system:
Where
The loop natural frequency is a measure of the response time of the loop, and the damping factor is a measure of the overshoot and
ringing. Ideally, the natural frequency should be high and the damping factor should be near 0.707 (critical damping). With a single
pole filter, it is not possible to control the loop frequency and damping factor independently. For the case of critical damping,
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A slightly more effective filter, the lag-lead filter includes one pole and one zero. This can be realized with two resistors and one
capacitor. The transfer function for this filter is
1 = C(R1 + R2)
2 = CR2
Substituting above yields the following natural frequency and damping factor
The loop filter components can be calculated independently for a given natural frequency and damping factor
Real world loop filter design can be much more complex e.g. using higher order filters to reduce various types or source of phase noise.
(See the D Banerjee ref below)
See also
Control theory
Direct-digital synthesis
Costas loop
Kalman filter
Direct conversion receiver
Circle map - a simple mathematical model of the phase-locked loop showing both mode-locking and chaotic behavior.
Carrier recovery
Delay-locked loop (DLL)
PLL multibit
References
IO" (http://www.sxlist.com/techref/io/video/ntsc.htm) . Sxlist.com.
1. ^ If the frequency is constant and the initial phase is zero, then
http://www.sxlist.com/techref/io/video/ntsc.htm. Retrieved
the phase of a sinusoid is proportional to time.
2010-10-14.
2. ^ E. V. Appleton, Automatic synchronization of triode oscillators,
7. ^ A. B. Grebene, H. R. Camenzind, Phase Locking As A New
Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc., 21(Part III):231 (1922-1923)
Approach For Tuned Integrated Circuits, ISSCC Digest of
3. ^ Henri de Bellescize, "La rception synchrone," L'Onde
Technical Papers, pp. 100-101, Feb. 1969.
lectrique (later: Revue de l'Electricit et de l'Electronique), vol.
8. ^ Roland E. Best (2007). Phase-Locked Loops: Design, Simulation
11, pages 230-240 (June 1932).
and Applications (6th ed.). McGraw Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-149375-8.
4. ^ See also: French patent no. 635,451 (filed: 6 October 1931;
9. ^ M Horowitz, C. Yang, S. Sidiropoulos (1998-01-01). "High-speed
issued: 29 September 1932); and U.S. patent "Synchronizing
electrical signaling: overview and limitations" (http://wwwsystem," (http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=01990428&
vlsi.stanford.edu/papers/mh_micro_98.pdf) . IEEE Micro.
homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2FnphParser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u http://www-vlsi.stanford.edu/papers/mh_micro_98.pdf.
10. ^ "PLL Synthesizers/VCOs" (http://www.analog.com/en/rfif%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearchcomponents/pll-synthesizersvcos/products/index.html) . Analog
bool.html%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526co1%3DAND%2526d%3DPALL%2526s1%3D1,990,428.PN.%2526OS%3DPN%2F1,990,42
Devices. http://www.analog.com/en/rfif-components
PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&
/pll-synthesizersvcos/products/index.html. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
Input=View+first+page) no. 1,990,428 (filed: 29 September 1932;
issued: 5 February 1935).
11. ^
This article incorporates public domain material from the
5. ^ Notes for a University of Guelph course describing the PLL and
General Services Administration document "Federal Standard
early history, including an IC PLL tutorial (http://www.uoguelph.ca
1037C" (http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/fs-1037c.htm) (in
/~antoon/gadgets/pll/pll.html)
support of MIL-STD-188).
6. ^ "National Television Systems Committee Video Display Signal
Further reading
Banerjee, Dean (2006), PLL Performance, Simulation and Design Handbook (http://www.national.com/analog/timing
/pll_designbook) (4th ed.), National Semiconductor, http://www.national.com/analog/timing/pll_designbook. (PDF version
(http://www.national.com/appinfo/wireless/files/deansbook4.pdf) ).
Best, R. E. (2003), Phase-locked Loops: Design, Simulation and Applications, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-141201-8
de Bellescize, Henri (June 1932), "La rception Synchrone", L'Onde Electrique 11: 230240
Dorf, Richard C. (1993), The Electrical Engineering Handbook, Boca Raton: CRC Press, ISBN 0-8493-0185-8
Egan, William F. (1998), Phase-Lock Basics, John Wiley & Sons. (provides useful Matlab scripts for simulation)
Egan, William F. (2000), Frequency Synthesis by Phase Lock (2nd ed.), John Wiley and Sons. (provides useful Matlab scripts for
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simulation)
Gardner, Floyd M. (2005), Phaselock Techniques (3rd ed.), Wiley-Interscience, ISBN 978-0471430636
Klapper, J.; Frankle, J. T. (1972), Phase-Locked and Frequency-Feedback Systems, Academic Press. (FM Demodulation)
Kundert, Ken (August 2006), Predicting the Phase Noise and Jitter of PLL-Based Frequency Synthesizers (http://www.designersguide.org/Analysis/PLLnoise+jitter.pdf) (4g ed.), Designer's Guide Consulting, Inc., http://www.designers-guide.org/Analysis
/PLLnoise+jitter.pdf
Liu, Mingliang (February 21, 2006), Build a 1.5-V 2.4-GHz CMOS PLL (http://www.wirelessnetdesignline.com/howto/180205535) ,
Wireless Net Design Line, http://www.wirelessnetdesignline.com/howto/180205535. An article on designing a standard PLL IC for
Bluetooth applications.
Wolaver, Dan H. (1991), Phase-Locked Loop Circuit Design, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0136627439
Signal processing and system aspects of all-digital phase-locked loops (ADPLLs) (http://www2.spsc.tugraz.at/people/cvogel
/ADPLL.html) , http://www2.spsc.tugraz.at/people/cvogel/ADPLL.html
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-locked_loop"
Categories: Oscillators | Communication circuits | Electronic design | Radio electronics
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