• 전자공학회논문지 IE
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2012

For the performance improvement of a time-to-digital converter(TDC), a 2-stage high resolution TDC has been designed by using a 2-stage vernier time amplifier(2-S VTA). The two stage vernier time amplifier which has a gain over 64 of the resolution can enhance the resolution of the whole two stage TDC. Because of using a vernier TDC, the structure is not limited to advanced processes for achieving high resolution. The proposed TDC has been designed in a $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process and simulated with a 1.8V supply voltage. The entire input range is 512ps, and the full resolution 0.125ps.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.7-13
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• 2011

This paper presents a Time-to-Digital Converter which is a key block of an All-Digital Phase Locked Loop. In this work, a Vernier Delay Line is added in a conventional Gated Ring Oscillator, so it could get multi-phases and a high resolution. The Gated Ring Oscillator uses 7 unit delay cell, the Vernier Delay Line is used each delay cell. So proposed Time-to-Digital Converter uses total 21 phases. This Time-to-Digital Converter circuit is designed and laid out in $0.13{\mu}m$ 1P-6M CMOS technology. The proposed Time-to-Digital Converter achieves 26ps resolution, maximum input signal frequency is 100MHz and the digital output of proposed Time-to-Digital Converter are 8-bits. The proposed TDC detect 5ns phase difference between Start and Stop signal. A power consumption is 8.4~12.7mW depending on Enable signal width.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.577-582
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• 2016

The synchronous TDC(Time-to-Digital Converter) of counter-type using current-conveyor is designed by $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process and the supply voltage is 3 volts. In order to compensate the disadvantage of a asynchronous TDC the clock is generated when the start signal is applied and the clock is synchronized with the start signal. In the asynchronous TDC the error range of digital output is from $-T_{CK}$ to $T_{CK}$. But the error range of digital output is from 0 to $T_{CK}$ in the synchronous TDC. The error range of output is reduced by the synchronization between the start signal and the clock when the timing-interval signal is converted to digital value. Also the structure of the synchronous TDC is simple because there is no the high frequency external clock. The operation of designed TDC is confirmed by the HSPICE simulation.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.366-373
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• 2011

In this paper, we propose a low-power all-digital phase-locked loop (ADPLL) with a wide input range and a high resolution time-to-digital converter (TDC). The resolution of the proposed TDC is improved by using a phase-interpolator and the time amplifier. The phase noise of the proposed ADPLL is improved by using a fine resolution digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) with an active inductor. In order to control the frequency of the DCO, the transconductance of the active inductor is tuned digitally. The die area of the ADPLL is 0.8 $mm^2$ using 0.13 ${\mu}m$ CMOS technology. The frequency resolution of the TDC is 1 ps. The DCO tuning range is 58% at 2.4 GHz and the effective DCO frequency resolution is 0.14 kHz. The phase noise of the ADPLL output at 2.4 GHz is -120.5 dBc/Hz with a 1 MHz offset. The total power consumption of the ADPLL is 12 mW from a 1.2 V supply voltage.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.103-106
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• 2010

In this paper, the delay times were evaluated to develop highly reliable time-to-digital converter(TDC) in analog and digital delay element structures. The delay element can be designed by using current source or inverter. In case of using inverter, the number of inverter has to be controlled to adjust the delay time. And in case of using current source, the current for charging and discharging is controlled. When the current source is used the delay time of the delay element is not sensitive with varying the channel width of CMOS. However, when the inverter is used the delay time is directly related to the channel width of CMOS. Therefore to obtain good reliability in TDC circuit the delay element using current source is more stable compared to inverter in the viewpoint of the variation of fabrication process.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.87-93
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• 2010

This paper presents a high resolution, wide input range 2-step time-to-digital converter used in digital PLL. TDC is used to compare the DPLL output frequency with reference frequency and should be implemented with high resolution to improve the phase noise of DPLL. The conventional TDC consists of delay line realized inverters, whose resolution is determined by delay time of inverter and transistor size, resulting in limited resolution. In this paper, 2-step TDC with phase-interpolation and Time Amplifier is proposed to meet the high resolution and wide input range by implement the delay time less than an inverter delay. The gain of Time Amplifier is improved by using the delay time difference between two inverters. It is implemented in $0.13{\mu}m$ CMOS process and the die area is $800{\mu}m{\times}850{\mu}m$ Current consumption is 12 mA at the supply voltage of 1.2 V. The resolution and input range of the proposed TDC are 0.357 ps and 200 ps, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.893-898
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• 2017

A TDC(Time-to-Digital Converter) of counter-type is designed by $0.18{\mu}mCMOS$process and the supply voltage is 1.5 volts. The converted error of maximum $T_{CK}$ is occurred by the time difference between the start signal and the clock when the period of clock is $T_{CK}$ in the conventional TDC. And the converted error of -$T_{CK}$ is occurred by the time difference between the stop signal and the clock. However in order to compensate the disadvantage of the conventional TDC the clock is generated within the TDC circuit and the clock is synchronized with the start and stop signals. In the designed TDC circuit the conversion error is not occurred by the difference between the start signal and the click and the magnitude of conversion error is reduced (1/2)$T_{CK}$ by the time difference between the stop signal and the clock.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.137-143
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• 2015

A delay-line type time-to-digital converter (TDC) implemented in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is most widely owing due to its simple structure and high conversion rate. However, the delay-line type TDC suffers from nonlinearity error caused by the long delay-line because its time interval measurement range is determined by the length of the used delay line. In this study, a new TDC structure with a shorter delay line by taking a pulse train as an input is proposed for improved time accuracy and efficient use of resources. The proposed TDC utilizes a pulse-train with four transitions and a transition state detector that identifies the used transition among four transitions and prevents the meta-stable state without a synchronizer. With 72 delay cells, the measured resolution and maximum non-linearity were 20.53 ps, and 1.46 LSB, respectively, and the time interval measurement range was 5070 ps which was enhanced by approximately 343 % compared to the conventional delay-line type TDC.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.42 no.9 s.339
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• pp.35-40
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• 2005

A digitally controlled phase-locked loop (DCPLL) is described. The DCPLL has basically the same structure as a conventional analog PLL except for a tracking analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The tracking ADC generates the control signal for voltage controlled oscillator. Since the DCPLL employs neither digitally controlled oscillator nor time-to-digital converter-the key building blocks of digital PLL (DPLL), there is no need for the 03de-off between jitter, power consumption and silicon area. The DCPLL was implemented in a $0.18\mu$m CMOS process and the active area is 1mm $\times$0.35 mm The DCPLL consumes S9mW during the normal opuation and $984\{mu}W$ during the power-down mode from a 1.8V supply. The DCPLL shows 16.8ps ms jitter.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.800-804
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• 2019

This paper presents a dual-loop sub-sampling digital PLL for a 2.4 GHz IoT applications. The PLL initially performs a divider-based coarse lock and switches to a divider-less fine sub-sampling lock. It achieves a low in-band phase noise performance by enabling the use of a high resolution time-to-digital converter (TDC) and a digital-to-time converter (DTC) in a selected timing range. To remove the difference between the phase offsets of the coarse and fine loops, a phase offset calibration scheme is proposed. The phase offset of the fine loop is estimated during the coarse lock and reflected in the coarse lock process, resulting in a smooth transition to the fine lock with a stable fast settling. The proposed digital PLL is designed by SystemVerilog modeling and Verilog-HDL and fully verified with simulations.