Estimation of Power and Delay of CMOS Phase Detector and Phase-Frequency Detector Using Nano Dimensional MOS Transistor
Estimation of Power and Delay of CMOS Phase Detector and Phase-Frequency Detector Using Nano Dimensional MOS Transistor
Estimation of Power and Delay of CMOS Phase Detector and Phase-Frequency Detector Using Nano Dimensional MOS Transistor
Abstract
In this paper the design of phase detector circuit using nano dimensional transistor has been
presented . which are mainly used in phase locked loops (PLL) is for clock generation and clock
recovery in microprocessor, networking, communication systems, and frequency synthesizers. Phase
locked-loops (PLLs) are commonly used to generate well-timed on-chip clocks in high- performance
digital systems. Modern wireless communication systems employ Phase Locked Loop (PLL) mainly
for synchronization, clock synthesis, skew and jitter reduction. Because of the increase in the speed
of the circuit operation, there is a need of a PLL circuit with faster locking ability. Many present
communication systems operate in the GHz frequency range. Hence there is a necessity of a PLL
which must operate in the GHz range with less lock time. PLL is a mixed signal circuit as its
architecture involves both digital and analog signal processing units.The conventional circuit of
phase-frequency detection has been realized and presented. The circuit schematics are simulated with
the help of Tanner SPICE software. The power dissipation, transistor delay, product of power and
delay of the phase detector circuit has been estimated. Power and speed performance analysis is
carried out varying the value of VDD in the range 1.2 V - 5V and aspect ratio of PMOS to NMOS
from 1 to 5 . Moreover , the power, gate delay and PDP of the phase-frequency detector has been
designed .The results are pleasing context to the design of Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuit
having high speed and low power dissipation.
i
Table of Contents
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................................... i
Table of Figures............................................................................................................................................. ii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
............................................................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Motivation........................................................................................................................................... 2
CHAPTER 2
2.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 6
2.5.2 Jitter 14
2.5.3 Spur 15
CHAPTER 3
3.3.1 Advantages......................................................................................................................................23
3.3.2 Disadvantages.................................................................................................................................23
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION..................................................................................................... 31
CHAPTER 6
References.................................................................................................................................................. 48
Table of Figures
Figure2.1 Basic block diagram of a PLL...........................................................................................................6
Figure2.2 Architecture of a PLL........................................................................................................................7
Figure2.3 Block diagram of a traditional PFD circuit............................................................................8
Figure2.4 Schematic diagram of the charge pump circuit with loop filter......................................................9
Figure2.5 Simplified view of a current starved VCO.....................................................................................10
Figure2.6 Circuit diagram of a current starved VCO......................................................................................11
Figure2.7 Schematic of a simple DFF based divide by 2 frequency divider circuit.....................................12
Figure2.8 Illustration of lock and capture range.............................................................................................13
Figure2.9 Output current pulses from charge pump in the lock state............................................................15
Figure3.1 Convex functions on an interval [26].............................................................................................22
Figure5.1 Circuit diagram of a pass transistor based DFF PFD.....................................................................32
Figure5.2 Simulation result of PFD when Fin rising edge leads Fref rising edge.....................................33
Figure5.3 Simulation result of PFD when Fref rising edge leads Fin rising edge.....................................33
Figure5.4 Simulation result for loop filter with PFD when Fref clock edge leads Fin clock edge..................34
Figure5.5 Simulation result for loop filter with PFD when Fin clock edge leads Fref clock edge..................35
Figure5.6 Output signal of the VCO at a control voltage of VDD/2................................................................35
Figure5.7 VCO characteristics curve...............................................................................................................37
Figure5.8 Phase noise plot of VCO for schematic level.................................................................................37
Figure5.9 Layout of the 5 stage current starved VCO....................................................................................37
Figure5.10 Simulation results of scaling ratio and corresponding delay.......................................................38
Figure5.11 Ccomparisons of control voltage versus oscillating frequency characteristics of the CSVCO
circuit................................................................................................................................................................40
Figure5.12 Circuit diagram of a pass transistor based DFF frequency divider circuit..................................41
Figure5.13 Simulation result of the divide by 2 circuits.................................................................................41
Figure5.14 Variation of the control voltage w.r.t. time..................................................................................42
Figure5.15 Layout of the PLL circuit..............................................................................................................43
Figure5.16 Different signals of PLL in lock state for schematic level...........................................................43
Figure5.17 Different signals of PLL in lock state for post layout level simulation......................................44
Figure5.18 Phase noise variation of PLL w.r.t. offset frequency for schematic level simulation................44
Figure5.19 Phase noise variation of PLL w.r.t. offset frequency for post layout level simulation..............45
v
List of Tables
Table 1 VCO design specifications..................................................................................................................29
Table 2 List of design parameters of the CSVCO circuit................................................................................29
Table 3 PLL design specifications and parameters..........................................................................................30
Table 4 Oscillating frequency of the VCO output signal for different control voltage..................................36
Table 5 Comparison of schematic and post layout level simulation results...................................................38
Table 6 Size of the transistors of CSVCO circuit after optimization..............................................................39
Table 7 Performance comparison of CSVCO designed using traditional method and convex optimization
.............................................................................................................................................................. 40
Table 8 Performance comparison of PLL circuit.............................................................................................45
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1
1.1 Motivation
Phase locked loop (PLL) [1-3] is the heart of the many modern electronics as well as
communication system. Recently plenty of the researches have conducted on the design of phase
locked loop (PLL) circuit and still research is going on this topic. Most of the researches have
conducted to realize a higher lock range PLL with lesser lock time [4] and have tolerable phase
noise. The most versatile application of the phase locked loops (PLL) is for clock generation and
synthesizers. Phase locked-loops (PLLs) are commonly used to generate well-timed on-chip clocks
Locked Loop (PLL) mainly for synchronization, clock synthesis, skew and jitter reduction [5].
Phase locked loops find wide application in several modern applications mostly in advance
communication and instrumentation systems. PLL being a mixed signal circuit involves design
Since its inspection in early 1930s, where it was used in the synchronization of the
horizontal and vertical scans of television, it has come to an advanced form of integrated
circuit (IC). Today found uses in many other applications. The first PLL ICs were available
around 1965; it was built using purely analog component. Recent advances in integrated
circuit design techniques have led to the development of high performance PLL which has
become more economical and reliable. Now a whole PLL circuit can be integrated as a part of a
There are mainly five blocks in a PLL. These are phase frequency detector (PFD), charge
pump (CP), low pass loop filter (LPF), voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) and frequency
divider. Presently almost all communication and electronics devices operate at a higher
frequency, so for that purpose we need a faster locking PLL. So there are a lot of challenges in
designing the mentioned different blocks of the PLL to operate at a higher frequency. And these
challenges motivated me towards this research topic. In this work mainly the faster locking of the
PLL is concentrated by properly choosing the circuit architectures and parameters. The
optimization of the VCO circuit is also carried out in this work to get a better frequency
precision.
Chapter 1 of the thesis. Chapter 2 briefly describes the whole PLL system. An introduction to the
PLL circuit is mentioned in the section 2.1. Section 2.2 contains the detail architecture of the
whole PLL system. Different types of PLLs are mentioned in the section 2.3. Section 2.4
explains the basic terms used in the PLL system while the consecutive sections give the details
different circuit optimization techniques are presented in section 3.1 and 3.2 respectively. Section
3.3 gives the brief outline of t h e concept of geometric programming and convex optimization.
The design and synthesis of the PLL is described in Chapter 4. The different design
environments used in this work is mentioned in the section 4.1. The adopted design procedure is
explained in section 4.2. Section 4.3 gives the design specifications and parameters of the work.
The simulation results of the different circuits used in the PLL are depicted in the different
sections of the Chapter 5. The performance of the CSVCO designed using convex optimization is
compared with that of the traditional method in section 5.3. Section 5.5 gives the different
simulation results of the PLL and its performance comparison between schematic and post layout
level. At last Chapter 6 provides the conclusion that inferred from the work.
CHAPTER 2
clock phase and the phase of a reference clock. A PLL is capable of tracking the phase changes
that falls in this bandwidth of the PLL. A PLL also multiplies a low-frequency reference clock
A PLL has a negative feedback control system circuit. The main objective of a PLL is to
generate a signal in which the phase is the same as the phase of a reference signal. This is
achieved after many iterations of comparison of the reference and feedback signals. In this lock
mode the phase of the reference and feedback signal is zero. After this, the PLL continues to
compare the two signals but since they are in lock mode, the PLL output is constant.
The basic block diagram of the PLL is shown in the Figure 2.1. In general a PLL consists of five
main blocks:
5. Divide by N Counter
the phase and frequency difference between the reference clock and the feedback clock.
Depending upon the phase and frequency deviation, it generates two output signals “UP” and
“DOWN”. The “Charge Pump” (CP) circuit is used in the PLL to combine both the outputs of
the PFD and give a single output. The output of the CP circuit is fed to a “Low Pass Filter”
(LPF) to generate a DC control voltage. The phase and frequency of the “Voltage Controlled
Oscillator” (VCO) output depends on the generated DC control voltage. If the PFD generates an
“UP” signal, the error voltage at the output of LPF increases which in turn increase the VCO
output signal frequency. On the contrary, if a “DOWN” signal is generated, the VCO output
signal frequency decreases. The output of the VCO is then fed back to the PFD in order to
recalculate the phase difference, and then we can create closed loop frequency control system.
several components. They are (1) phase or phase frequency detector, (2) charge pump, (3) loop
filter, (4) voltage-controlled oscillator, and (5) frequency divider. The functioning of each
The “Phase frequency Detector” (PFD) is one of the main part in PLL circuits. It compares the
phase and frequency difference between the reference clock and the feedback clock. Depending
upon the phase and frequency deviation, it generates two output signals “UP” and “DOWN”.
If there is a phase difference between the two signals, it will generate “UP” or “DOWN”
synchronized signals. When the reference clock rising edge leads the feedback input clock
rising edge “UP” signal goes high while keeping “DOWN” signal low. On the other hand if the
feedback input clock rising edge leads the reference clock rising edge “DOWN” signal goes
high and “UP” signal goes low. Fast phase and frequency acquisition PFDs [6-7] are generally
frequency difference information into a voltage, used to tune the VCO. Charge pump circuit is
used to combine both the outputs of the PFD and give a single output which is fed to the input of
the filter. Charge pump circuit gives a constant current of value I PDI which should be insensitive
to the supply voltage variation [8]. The amplitude of the current always remains same but the
polarity changes which depend on the value of the “UP” and “DOWN” signal. The schematic
diagram of the charge pump circuit with loop filter is shown in the Figure 2.4.
Figure2.4 Schematic diagram of the charge pump circuit with loop filter
When the UP signal goes high M2 transistor turns ON while M1 is OFF and the output current
is IPDI with a positive polarity. When the down signal becomes high M1 transistor turns ON while
M2 is OFF and the output current is IPDI with a negative polarity. The charge pump
IPUMP— (IPUMP)
IPDI = × A0
4n
2IPUMP
= 4n × A0
IPUMP
= 2n × A0
= KPDI × A0 (1)
PUMP
Where KPDI = I 2n
(amps/radian) (2)
The passive low pass loop filter is used to convert back the charge pump current into the
voltage. The filter should be as compact as possible [9].The output voltage of the loop filter
controls the oscillation frequency of the VCO. The loop filter voltage will increase if F ref rising
edge leads Fin rising edge and will decrease if F in rising edge leads Fref rising edge. If the PLL is in
The most popular type of the VCO circuit is the current starved voltage controlled oscillator
(CSVCO). Here the number of inverter stages is fixed with 5. The simplified view of a single stage
The current sources, Ml and M4, limit the current available to the inverter, M2 and M3; in other
words, the inverter is starved for current. The desired center frequency of the designed circuit is
1GHz with a supply of 1.8V. The CSVCO is designed both in usual manner as mentioned in [3],
[10, 11]. The general circuit diagram of the current starved voltage controlled oscillator is shown
To determine the design equations for the CSVCO, consider the simplified view of VCO in
The time it takes to charge Ctot from zero to VSP with the constant current ID4 is given by
SP
t1 = V × Ctot (5)
ID4
While the time it takes to discharge Ctot from VDD to VSP is given by
VDD–VSP
t1 = × Ctot (6)
I D1
DD
t1 + t2 = V × Ctot (7)
ID
DD
This is equal to fcenter when Vinvco = V
(9)
2
fN a x –
K
VCO = fNin
Hz/ (10)
VNax – V
VNin
frequency divider in the PLL circuit forms a closed loop. It scales down the frequency of the VCO
output signal. A simple D flip flop (DFF) acts as a frequency divider circuit. The schematic of a
simple DFF based divide by 2 frequency divider circuit is shown in the Figure 2.7.
1. Liner PLL
2. Digital PLL
4. Soft PLL
is called as lock in range. This is also called as tracking range or holding range.
capture range. This is also known as acquisition range. This is directly proportional to the LPF
bandwidth. Reduction in the loop filter bandwidth thus improves the rejection of the out of
band signals, but at the same time the capture range decreases, pull in time becomes larger
imperfections and noises in the system. The supply noise also affects the output noise of the PLL
system [12]. There are mainly 4 types of noises. They are explained below.
This is mostly affected by oscillator’s frequency stability. The main sources of the phase noise in
PLL are oscillator noise [12-15], PFD and frequency divider circuit. The main components of the
2.5.2 Jitter
A jitter is the short term-term variations of a signal with respect to its ideal position in time [16-
19]. This problem negatively impacts the data transmission quality. Jitter and phase noise are
closely related and can be computed one from another [18]. Deviation from the ideal position
can occur on either leading edge or trailing edge of signal. Jitter may be induced and coupled onto
a clock signal from several different sources and is not uniform over all frequencies. Excessive
jitter can increase bit error rate (BER) of communication signal [19]. In digital system Jitter leads
called as “Spur”. There are mainly two types of spur. They are reference spur and fractional spur.
Reference spur comes into picture in an integer PLL while fractional spur plays a major role in
fractional PLL. When the PLL is in lock state the phase and frequency inputs to the PFD are
essentially equal. There should not be any error output from the PFD. Since this can create
problem, so the PFD is designed such that, in the locked state the current pulses from the CP will
have a very narrow width as shown in the Figure 2.9. Because of this the input control voltage of
the VCO is modulated by the reference signal and thus produces “Reference Spur” [20].
Figure2.9 Output current pulses from charge pump in the lock state
there should not be any current flow. But in practical some leakage current flows in the circuit and
electronics, communication and instrumentation. The recent applications of the PLL circuits are
in memories, microprocessors, hard disk drive electronics, RF and wireless transceivers, clock
recovery circuits on microcontroller boards and optical fiber receivers. Some of the PLL
1. Frequency Synthesis
2. 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 GHz and the reference crystal is just tens or hundreds of
megahertz.
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 phase-aligns to
the transitions in the data stream with a PLL. This process is referred to as clock recovery.
4. Skew Reduction
This is one of the very popular and earliest uses of PLL. Suppose synchronous pair of data
and clock lines enter a large digital chip. Since clock typically drives a large number of
transistors and logic interconnects, it is first applied to large buffer. Thus, the clock distributed
on chip may suffer from substantial skew with respect to data. This is an undesirable effect
One desirable property of all PLLs is that the reference and feedback clock edges be
brought into very close alignment. The average difference in time between the phases of the
two signals when the PLL has achieved lock is called the static phase offset. The variance
between these phases is called tracking jitter. Ideally, the static phase offset should be zero,
CONVEX OPTIMIZATION
OF VCO IN PLL
3.1 What is an optimization technique?
Optimization technique is nothing but the finding of the action that optimizes i.e. minimizes or
maximizes the result of the objective function. Optimization technique is applied to the circuits
aiming at finding out the optimized circuit design parameter to achieve either the best
performance or the desired performance. Optimization techniques are a set of most powerful
tools that are used in efficiently handling the design resources and there by achieve the best
result. Mainly optimization techniques are applied to the circuit for the selection of the
component values, devices sizes, and value of the voltage or current source.
1. Classical optimization
In case of analog circuit CAD, classical optimization methods [21], such as steepest descent,
sequential quadratic programming, and Lagrange multiplier methods are mainly used. These
methods are used with more complicated circuit models, including even full SPICE simulations
in each iteration. This method can handle a wide variety of problem. For this there is a need of a
set of performance measures and computation of one or more derivatives. The main disadvantage
of the classical optimization methods is that the global optimal solution is not possible. This
method fails to find a feasible design even one exist. This method gives only the local minima
instead of global solution. Since many different initial designs are considered to get the global
optimization, the method becomes slower. Because of the human intervention (to give “good”
initial designs), the method becomes less automated. The classical methods become slow if
systems based on Fuzzy logic, and heuristics-based systems have also been widely used in
analog circuit CAD [21]. In case of knowledge based methods, there are few limitations on the
types of problems, specifications, and performance measures that are to be considered. These
methods do not require the computation of the derivatives. This is not possible to find a global
optimal design solution using these methods. The final design is decided on the basis of the
initial design chosen and the algorithm parameters. The disadvantage of the knowledge based
methods is that they simply fail to find a feasible solution even when one may exist. There is a
need of human intervention during the design and the training process.
Global optimization methods such as branch and bound and simulated annealing are also used in
analog circuit design [21]. These methods are guaranteed to find the global optimal design
solution. The global optimal design is determined by the branch and bound methods
unambiguously. In each iteration, a suboptimal feasible design and also a lower bound on the
achievable performance is maintained by this method. This enables the algorithm to terminate non-
heuristically, i.e., with complete confidence that the global design has been found within a given
tolerance. The branch and bound method is extremely slow, with computation growing
exponentially with problem size. The trapping in a locally optimal design can be avoided by
using simulated annealing (SA). This method can compute the global optimal solution but not
guaranteed. Since there is no real-time lower bound is available, so termination is heuristic. This
20
method can also handle a wide variety of performance indices and objects. The main advantage
of SA is that it handles the continuous variables and discrete variables problems efficiently and
reduces the chances of getting a non-globally optimal design. The only problem with this method
is that it is very slow and can not guarantee a global optimal solution.
Geometric programming methods are special optimization problems in which the objective and
constraint functions are all convex [22-24]. Convex optimization technique can solve the
problems having a large number of variables and constraints very efficiently [22]. The main
advantage of this method for which people generally adopt is that the method gives the global
performance is given, so the method uses a completely non- heuristic stopping criterion.
Geometric programming is a special type of optimization technique in which all the objective
must be convex. Before applying this technique it has to confirm that whether the given problem
is convex optimization problem or not. Convex optimization problem means the problem of
minimizing a convex function subject to convex inequality constraints and linear equality
more efficient computational tool for optimization purpose. This method has an ability to handle
thousands of variables and constraints and solve efficiently. The main advantage of convex
optimization technique is that it gives the global optimized value and the robust design. The fact
that geometric programs can be solved very efficiently has a number of practical consequences.
For example, the method can be used to simultaneously optimize the design of a large number of
circuits in a single large mixed-mode integrated circuit. The designs of the individual circuits are
coupled by constraints on total power and area, and by various parameters that affect the circuit
coupling such as input capacitance, output resistance, etc. Convex optimization is used to find out
the optimized value of these parameter and sizing of the devices in the circuit [25]. Another
application is to use the efficiency to obtain robust designs i.e., designs that are guaranteed to
meet a set of specifications over a variety of processes or technology parameter values. This is
done by simply replicating the specifications with a (possibly large) number of representative
process parameters, which is practical only because geometric programs with thousands of
constraints are readily solved. A real valued function f(x) defined on an interval (space) is
called convex if
Let x1, x2 … … xn be n real positive variables. We can denote the vector (xi, xi … … . xi) of
these variables asx. A function f is called a posynomial function of x if it has the form
fi(x1, x2 … … xn) = ∑t Ckxα1k xα2k … . . xαnk (12)
k=1 1 2 n
Where Cj ≤ 0 and αij c R. The coefficients Cj must be nonnegative but the exponents αij can be
any real numbers including negative or fractional. When there is exactly one nonzero term in
3.3.1 Advantages:
3.3.2 Disadvantages:
Strictly limited to types of problems, performance specification and objectives that can be
handled.
In my earlier design of the VCO circuit, the sizes of all the five inverter stages are same. Now
the convex optimization technique is applied to find out the optimal scaling ratio of the different
inverter stages to get the optimal design with a better performance. There are 5 inverter stages
and the design has to give a delay of 100ps. The load capacitance of the VCO circuit is 65 fF. All
these design constraints are formulated and applied to the convex optimization technique. Mainly
optimization techniques are applied for selection of component values and transistor sizing.
In this work I have used the geometric programming technique to find out the optimized
scaling ratio of the different stages in CSVCO to meet the desired center frequency with lesser
deviation. Let xi is the scaling ration of the ith stage, CL is the load capacitance, and D is the total
Subjected to CL ≤ CLNas
D ≤ DNas
Where CLNas and DNas are required design parameters and has a constant value.
CHAPTER 4
The schematic level design entry of the circuits is carried out in the CADENCE Virtuoso Analog
Design Environment. The layout of the PLL is designed in Virtuoso XL using GPDK090 library.
In order to analyze the performances, these circuits are simulated in the Spectre simulator of
CADENCE tool. Different performance indices such as phase noise, power consumption and
lock time are measured in this environment. Transient, parametric sweep and phase noise
analyses are carried out in this work to find out the performances of the circuit. The optimization
of the current starved VCO circuit, the scale factor for transistor sizing is found out using the
MATLAB environment.
Since VCO is the heart of the whole PLL system, it should be designed in a proper manner. The
Step 1
Find the value of the propagation delay for each stage of the inverter in the VCO circuit using the
following equation.
vp= 1 Nf (13)
Where vp = vphS= vpSh= half of the propagation delay time of the inverter
N= no of inverter stages
Find the (W/L) ratio for the transistors in the different inverter stages using the equation in
below.
dd–VT,n)
(W/L) n = Cload
( 2VT,n
+ ln (4(V — 1)) (14)
cphlµnCox(Vdd–VT,n) Vdd–VT,n Vdd
Step 3
After finding the (W/L) ratio, find the values for W and L.
Step 4
Lp, Wp,Ln,Wn is the width and length of the PMOS and NMOS transistors in the inverter stages.
Step 5
Calculate the value of drain current for the center frequency which is given by
Step 6
Find the (W/L) ratio for the current starving transistors in the circuit from the drain current
µnCox Vgc–VT,n)
The value of the charge pump current and the component parameters of the loop filter play a
major role in the design of the phase locked loop circuit. The value of the lock time mainly
depends upon these parameters. So while designing the circuit proper care should be taken in
calculating these parameters. For the given values of reference(F ref) and output frequency(F out)
as well as the lock in range, the following steps to be carried out in designing the filter circuit.
Step 1
F
out
n =Fref (20)
Step 2
Find the value of the natural frequency (mn) from the lock in range as given below
Step 3
Find the value of the charge pump gain (KPDI) from the charge pump current used in the circuit
which is given by
IpuNp
KPDI = (Amps/radian) (22)
2n
Step 4
Find the value of the gain of the VCO ( Kvco) circuit from the characteristics curve using the
following expression.
f
N ax
Kvco = fN
– (Hz/V) (23)
in
VNax –
VNin
Step 5
Find the values of the loop filter component parameters using the following expressions.
C1=
KPDI×Kvco
(24)
Nmn2
C 1
C2 = 1O (25)
2£
R = mnC1 (26)
Parameter Value
Parameter Value
Parameter Value
Divider circuit By 2
Capacitor (C1) 15 pF
30
CHAPTER 5
SIMULATION RESULTS
AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Phase Frequency Detector
The Pass Transistor DFF PFD circuit is shown in Figure 5.1. The PFD is same as to a dynamic
two-phase master-slave pass-transistor flip-flop. The clock skew is minimized by using single
edge clocks. In this design synchronous reset is used for master while asynchronous reset is used
for slave. i.e., the reset is allowed only when the slave latch is transparent. The operating range
of the design is increased with the help of synchronous resetting and also the power consumption
is reduced compared to the traditional PFD. If the master latch is reset while it is transparent,
then there will be significant short-circuit current will produce, resulting in more power. The
output of the PFD when Fref signal rising edge leads Fin signal rising edge and vice versa is
Figure5.3 Simulation result of PFD when Fref rising edge leads Fin rising edge
5.2 Charge Pump and Loop Filter
When the reference signal clock edge leads the feedback clock edge, the UP signal of the PFD
goes high. So to make both the clock have rising edge at the same time the VCO output signal
frequency has to be increased. For this purpose an increase in control voltage is needed from the
output of charge pump and loop filter circuit. The simulation result which is shown in the Figure
5.4 below gives an increase in the control voltage at the output of the loop filter circuit. From the
Figure 5.4 it’s clear that the control voltage increases for a period during which the UP signal of
the PFD remains high. In the other case a decrease in the control voltage is produced at the
output of the filter circuit which is shown in the Figure 5.5. When the rising of feedback signal
leads the reference signal rising edge the control voltage decreases for the period during which
Figure5.4 Simulation result for loop filter with PFD when F ref clock edge leads Fin clock edge
Figure5.5 Simulation result for loop filter with PFD when F in clock edge leads Fref clock edge
center frequency of oscillation of 1 GHz. The frequency of oscillation of the output signal for the
different input control voltage is mentioned in the Table 4. The center frequency of oscillation at
an input control voltage of V DD/2 is 1.012 GHz. The output signal of the VCO at a control voltage
The VCO characteristics curve is shown in the Figure 5.7. The X-axis of the curve represents
the input control voltage while the Y-axis represents the corresponding frequency of oscillation.
The gain of the CSVCO circuit is 1.531 GHz/V. The phase noise of the VCO in the schematic
level is found to be -82.87 dBc/Hz. The phase noise plot for schematic level is shown in the
Figure 5.8. The layout of the 5 stage current starved VCO is shown in the Figure 5.9. The
schematic and post layout level simulation results are compared in the Table 5.
Characterstics Curve of VCO
2000
1900
1800
1700
1600
1500
Frequencyof Oscillation (in MHz)
1400
1300
1200
1100
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8
Control Voltage (in Volt)
of oscillation (i.e. delay of the circuit) from the MATLAB environment. The scaling ratio for
different stages of the inverter in the VCO is 1,1,1,1 and 1.4058. The scaling ratio result is shown
Now the transistor sizes are modified according to the scaling ratio. Since the scaling factor of
all the stages are 1 except 5th stage, so the transistor sizing of the 5th stage has only changed to
get the better frequency precision. The sizes of the transistors of CSVCO optimized using
convex optimization technique are listed out in the Table 6. Before optimization the centre
frequency of the oscillation is found out 1.012GHz. And after applying the convex optimization
and geometric programming to this circuit, the centre frequency of oscillation is 1000.0457MHz.
So the frequency deviation from its centre frequency is reduced to .00457% from 1.2%. The
performance of CSVCO for both traditional and geometric programming is compared in the
Table 7. The comparison of control voltage versus oscillating frequency characteristics of the
1 WPCS 2.33µm
WnCS 140nm
WP 2.44µm
Wn 150nm
2 WPCS 2.33µm
WnCS 140nm
WP 2.44µm
Wn 150nm
3 WPCS 2.33µm
WnCS 140nm
WP 2.44µm
Wn 150nm
4 WPCS 2.33µm
WnCS 140nm
WP 2.44µm
Wn 150nm
5 WPCS 3.28µm
WnCS 195nm
WP 3.435µm
Wn 215nm
Table 7 Performance comparison of CSVCO designed using traditional method and convex
optimization
2000
Traditional Method
1800 Geometric Prog Method
1600
Oscillating Frequency in MHz
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
VCO Control Voltage in Volt
40
5.4 Frequency Divider
The circuit diagram of a pass transistor based DFF frequency divider circuit is shown in the
Figure 5.12. The circuit divides the frequency by a factor of 2. The simulation result of the divide
Figure5.12 Circuit diagram of a pass transistor based DFF frequency divider circuit
constant value when the references signal and feedback signal are in lock. The control voltage of
PLL for the schematic level is shown in the Figure 5.14. From the Figure 5.14 it’s clear that the
control maintains the constant value of 0.9 V at time 280.6 ns. So the lock time of PLL is
280.6 ns.
The layout of the PLL is shown in the Figure 5.15. The most of the area of the PLL is
consumed by the resistor and capacitor used in the filter network. Different signals like UP,
DOWN, Control Voltage, reference signal and feedback input signal of the PLL in the lock state
are shown in the Figure 5.16 and Figure 5.17 for schematic level and post layout level
respectively. From the Figure 5.16 and 5.17 it’s clear that when the control voltage is constant, the
reference signal and the feedback input signal are almost similar as their phase and frequency are
approximately same.
Figure5.15 Layout of the PLL circuit
The phase noise analysis of the PLL is carried out both in the schematic as well as in the post
layout level. The phase noise is found to be -86.21 dBc/Hz and -101.7 dBc/Hz in schematic and
post layout level respectively. The phase noise variation of the PLL both in schematic and post
layout level simulation are shown in the Figure 5.18 and 5.19 respectively.
Figure5.18 Phase noise variation of PLL w.r.t. offset frequency for schematic level simulation
Figure5.19 Phase noise variation of PLL w.r.t. offset frequency for post layout level simulation
The performance comparison of the PLL both in schematic and post layout level simulation are
mentioned in the Table 8.
Table 8 Performance comparison of PLL circuit
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION AND
FUTURE WORK
Conclusion and Future Work
1. In this work a PLL with a better lock time is presented. The lock time of the PLL is found
to be 280.6 ns.
2. The PLL circuit consumes a power of 11.9 mW from a 1.8 V D.C. supply
3. The lock time of the PLL mainly depends upon the type of PFD architecture used and the
parameters of the charge pump and loop filter. So by properly choosing the PFD
architecture and adjusting the charge pump current and the loop filter component values a
4. The centre frequency of oscillation of the VCO depends upon the sizing of the transistors.
The frequency deviation from the desired value can be reduced by properly choosing the
transistor sizes.
5. By applying the convex optimization technique with frequency of oscillation as the main
1.2%.
6. Here the convex technique is used to find out the transistor sizing to meet only the
desired frequency specification. The other constraints like area, power and phase noise
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50
List of Publications
Conference:
1. B.P.Panda, P.K.Rout, D.P.Acharya, and G.Panda “Analysis and Design of 1GHz PLL
April, 2011.
Journal:
1. B.P.Panda, P.K.Rout, D.P.Acharya, and G.Panda “Analysis and Design of 1GHz PLL
for Fast Phase and Frequency Acquisition” International Journal of Signals and