A 4-GHz Ring-Oscillator-Based Digital Sub-Sampling PLL With Energy-Efficient Dual-Domain Phase Detector

초록

This paper presents a 4-GHz ring-oscillator-based digital sub-sampling phase-locked loop (SSPLL) with an energy-efficient dual-domain phase detector (DDPD). The performance of the digital SSPLL is limited by the quantization noise (Q-noise) of the phase detector (PD), and it requires an analog-to-digital-converter (ADC) and optimally spaced voltage comparators (OSVCs) with a large power and area overhead to reduce the Q-noise. The proposed DDPD efficiently detects a phase error in both the voltage-and time-domains, thereby suppressing the Q-noise while minimizing additional cost. It requires only one comparator in the power-hungry digitally-controlled oscillator (DCO) clock path unlike ADC and OSVCs. Consequently, it achieves a high performance while consuming a small amount of power similar to that of a conventional bang-bang phase detector (BBPD). The proposed SSPLL was implemented in a 28-nm CMOS technology. It consumes 5.35 mW at 4 GHz and occupies an area of 0.014 mm ${<}^{>}2$ . The integrated rms jitter is reduced by 25.7% using the proposed DDPD, whereas the overall power dissipation is similar to that of a conventional BBPD-based PLL. The jitter-power FoM ${}_1$ of the prototype SSPLL is $-$ 235.9 dB, and the FoM ${}_2$ is $-$ 250.9 dB.

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