All-Digital PLL for Bluetooth Low Energy Using 32.768-kHz Reference Clock and ≤0.45-V Supply

Li, Chao-Chieh; Yuan, Ming; Liao, Chien Chang; Lin, Yung-Hsiang; Chang, Chih-Hsien; Staszewski, Robert Bogdan

doi:10.1109/jssc.2018.2871632

Cited by 26 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Reference [18] demonstrates a 0.5-V ADPLL with a DCO operating directly at 0.5 V. However, its TDC is supplied at 1 V by an internal doubler. An ADPLL in [19] runs its DCO at 0.23 V and a doubler at 0.35 V to power the voltage-sensitive TDC. Reference [20] demonstrates a DT-RX directly supplied at 0.275 V via an sw-cap-based voltage doubler.…”

Section: Circuit Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Type-II Phase-Tracking Receiver

Chen

et al. 2021

IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits

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We present a new analog-to-digital converter (ADC)-based architecture of a phase-tracking receiver (PT-RX) optimized for ultra-low-power (ULP) and ultra-low-voltage (ULV) operations for the Internet of Things (IoT). The RX employs a type-II loop configuration that offers improved stability compared with the previous type-I PT-RX solutions. In addition, the type-II loop is also very tolerant of long run-lengths of consecutive "1" or "0" symbol sequences. Fabricated in 28-nm CMOS, the prototype PT-RX targets Bluetooth low energy (BLE) standard consuming only 1.5 mW at a supply of ≤0.7 V. It maintains an adjacent-channel rejection (ACR) of ≥−11/3.5/17/27 dB at 0/±1/±2/±3 MHz offset and can tolerate out-of-band (OOB) blockers of minimum −21 dBm across 1.0-3.5 GHz while also offering a best-in-class figure of merit (FoM) of 181 dB, with a 1-Mb/s BLE sensitivity of −93 dBm. Index Terms-Bluetooth low energy (BLE), digitally controlled oscillator (DCO)-based receivers (RXs), discrete-time (DT) filter, Internet-of-Things (IoT), phase-tracking RXs (PT-RXs), successive-approximation-register (SAR)-analog-to-digital converter (ADC), ultra-low power (ULP), ultra-low voltage (ULV). I. INTRODUCTION T HE massive deployment of Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications calls for ultra-low-power (ULP) and ultralow-voltage (ULV) design techniques for system-on-chip (SoC) devices realized in nanoscale CMOS [1]-[4]. The RF receiver (RX) is a key IoT subsystem that takes a significant portion of the IoT's total power budget. In the industry, commercial RXs using Cartesian [i.e., in-phase/quadrature (I/Q)] topology [5], [6] aimed at Bluetooth low energy (BLE), a dominant standard in IoT devices, consume 5-10 mW. A more recent industry work [1], a superheterodyne discrete-time (DT) Cartesian RX, achieves the lowest power of 2.75 mW with a sensitivity of −95 dBm. However, it becomes more and more challenging to further reduce the power allocation for the RX,

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Section: Circuit Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Type-II Phase-Tracking Receiver

Chen

et al. 2021

IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits

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“…1, produce ULV supplies (<0.3 V) that are well below the threshold voltage (V th ) of even the most recent FinFET CMOS transistors, thus making it extremely challenging for circuit designers. On the other hand, all-digital PLLs (ADPLL) are well known for their friendliness to low supply voltages and immunity from supply perturbations [2]. The major part of power consumption in the whole ADPLL lies in a digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) [2], [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 0.2-V Three-Winding Transformer-Based DCO in 16-nm FinFET CMOS

Yuan

Lin

et al. 2020

IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II

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In this brief, we introduce a 3.2-4 GHz threewinding transformer-based class-F digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) with a DC-DC booster for energy harvesting applications. A π-model is adopted for this multi-turn transformer to analyze its impedance transformation and overall loop gain. The trifilar coil generates large passive voltage loop gain, allowing the DCO supply voltage of 0.2 V to be even lower than the threshold voltage of transistors without any performance degradation. Due to the gate/drain isolation as well as smaller voltage-dependent capacitance in advanced FinFET technology, this work achieves very low supply frequency pushing of 38 MHz/V. The switched capacitor placed at the tertiary winding can reach very fine resolution of 1.3 kHz due to the impedance transformations and source degeneration. The bias and control voltages of nearly zero power are generated with a switched-capacitor based DC-DC converter and a ring-based non-overlapped clock generator.

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“…Open-loop modulation has recently gained popularity in ULP TXs due to its energy-saving feature by shutting down the all-digital phase locked loop (ADPLL) loop after quickly acquiring the channel center frequency [1], [6], [8]- [10]. Further improvements in substantially lowering of the DCO flicker noise help to bring the carrier frequency drift to well within the IoT specifications [6], [10]. Under the open-loop scenario, the conventional TX architectures can be simplified as a convenient arrangement of a separate oscillator (e.g., voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) or DCO) and a PA [see Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The power-saving benefits of the open-loop modulation can be extended for quasi-open-loop modulation. An ADPLL for BLE in[10] features a mere 1-kHz loop bandwidth so that almost all of its digital circuitry can operate in subthreshold, resulting in the DCO consuming 70% of its 0.9-mW power budget.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/…”

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confidence: 99%

A Single-Pin Antenna Interface RF Front End Using a Single-MOS DCO-PA and a Push–Pull LNA

Yin

Mak

et al. 2020

IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits

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We propose a simple power-efficient sub-1-V fully integrated RF front end (RFE) for 2.4-GHz transceivers. It introduces the following innovations. First, a function-reuse single-MOS digitally controlled oscillator power amplifier (DCO-PA) with full supply utilization improves antenna-to-DCO isolation for better resilience to jammers. Second, a noninverting transmitter (TX) matching transformer with a zero-shifting capacitor suppresses the second-harmonic emission of the DCO-PA and allows a single-pin antenna interface for both TX and receiver (RX) modes eliminating the transmit/receive (T/R) switches in the signal path. Third, a push-pull low-noise amplifier (LNA) reuses the TX matching transformer for passive gain boosting that reduces power consumption. Fabricated in 65-nm CMOS, the RFE occupies merely 0.17 mm 2. Through the functional merge of the oscillator and PA, it can transmit 0 dBm at RF, featuring 10.2% power efficiency when delivering the RF power as low as −10 dBm at a 0.3-V supply. Under a 0.5-V supply, the LNA shows 11-dB gain and 6.8-dB noise figure (NF) while consuming 174 µW.

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All-Digital PLL for Bluetooth Low Energy Using 32.768-kHz Reference Clock and ≤0.45-V Supply

Cited by 26 publications

References 15 publications

A Type-II Phase-Tracking Receiver

A Type-II Phase-Tracking Receiver

A 0.2-V Three-Winding Transformer-Based DCO in 16-nm FinFET CMOS

A Single-Pin Antenna Interface RF Front End Using a Single-MOS DCO-PA and a Push–Pull LNA

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