Virtual fine delay line using one-stage inverter delay

A virtual fine delay line (VFDL) using only two ring oscillators and counters can cover a wide frequency operation range clock without adding any additional delay line stage. The proposed ring oscillator can easily make a unit delay as a one-stage inverter. The VFDL achieves fine resolution of less than 60 ps and small circuit area with two clock cycles lock-in time.     

A high-resolution multi-phase delay-locked loop with offset locking technique

In this work, we propose a new type of high-resolution delay-locked loop (DLL) which achieves the performance of high-resolution output by offset locking techniques without restrictions of intrinsic delay in the delay cell. Compared to traditional multi-phase clock generator, this architecture has the features of small size, low jitters, low-power consumption and high resolution. This DLL has been fabricated in 0.35 μm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process. The measured root-mean-square and peak-to-peak jitters are 2.89 ps and 31.1 ps at 250 MHz, respectively. The power dissipation is 68 mW for a supply voltage of 3.3 V. The maximum resolution of this work is 144 p and the intrinsic delay of 0.35 μm CMOS process is 220 ps. Comparing with intrinsic delay, the improvement of maximum resolution is 34.5%.     

Ultra-high-speed digital circuit performance in 0.2-μmgate-length AlInAs/GaInAs HEMT technology

The fabrication of fifteen-stage ring oscillators and static flip-flop frequency dividers with 0.2-μm gate-length AlInAs/GaInAs HEMT technology is described. The fabricated HEMT devices within the circuits demonstrated a g_m transconductance of 750 mS/mm and a full-channel current of 850 mA/mm. The measured cutoff frequency of the device is 120 GHz. The shortest gate delay measured for buffered-FET-logic (BFL) ring oscillators at 300 K was 9.3 ps at 66.7 mW/gate (fan-out=1); fan-out sensitivity was 1.5 ps per fanout. The shortest gate delay measured for capacitively enhanced logic (CEL) ring oscillators at 300 K was 6.0 ps at 23.8 mW/gate (fan-out=1) with a fan-out sensitivity of 2.7 ps per fan-out. The CEL gate delay reduced to less than 5.0 ps with 11.35-mW power dissipation when measured at 77 K. The highest operating frequency for the static dividers was 26.7 GHz at 73.1 mW and 300 K     

An ultra-high-speed ECL-BiCMOS technology with silicon filletself-aligned contacts

We have developed a half-micron super self-aligned BiCMOS technology for high speed application. A new SIlicon Fillet self-aligned conTact (SIFT) process is integrated in this BiCMOS technology enabling high speed performances for both CMOS and ECL bipolar circuits. In this paper, we describe the process design, device characteristics and circuit performance of this BiCMOS technology. The minimum CMOS gate delay is 38 ps on 0.5 μm gate and 50 ps on 0.6 μm gate ring oscillators at 5 V. Bipolar ECL gate delay is 24 ps on 0.6 μm emitter ring oscillators with collector current density of 40 kA/cm². A single phase decision circuit operating error free over 8 Gb/s and a static frequency divider operating at 13.5 GHz is demonstrated in our BiCMOS technology     

A low-temperature NMOS technology with Cesium-implanted load devices

A 2-µm enhancement/depletion-type NMOS technology designed for operation at liquid-nitrogen temperature is described. A cesium oxide implant has been used to realize load devices that are not degraded by the freeze out of mobile carriers that occurs in the bulk of conventional depletion-mode transistors at low temperature, Unloaded ring oscillators, fabricated using this technology, have an average propagation delay of 360 ps/stage and a power dissipation of 190 µW/stage with a 2.5-V power supply at 77 K; this represents an improvement in speed of a factor of 2.5 over a conventional NMOS technology operating at room temperature. Simulations predict a further decrease in delay to 200 ps/stage for a 2-/µm process may be achieved through optimization of the Cs-implanted load device without compromising noise margins.     

A new hybrid TDC based on GRO-pseudo delay architecture with fractional code and wide time range detection for divider-less ADPLL

This paper presents a novel Time-to-digital converter (TDC) for All Digital Phase Locked Loop (ADPLL) able to reach high linearity and wide input range with normalized fractional output code. The topology is based on startable Pseudo differential delay cells. It arbiters in a gated ring oscillator (GRO) format in manner to extend measurement time interval. A normalization unit is developed to free calibrate output and to measure phase errors for divider-less ADPLL applications. The proposed TDC is designed in 90 nm CMOS process. Simulation results show that the TDC achieves a large detectable conversion range that extends between 0.285 and 10 ns. The attained time resolution is 9.4 ps, which corresponds to half the delay time of an inverter. The TDC is self-calibrating with estimated accuracy better than 0.28%. The structure consumes 6.6 mA current from a 1.0 V voltage supply, when operating at a clock frequency of 13 MSPS. The estimated differential nonlinearity and integral nonlinearity are ±0.48 LSB and ±0.6 LSB respectively. Compared to previously reported TDC, this implementation achieves a competitive FoM_P without requiring complicate calibration.     

高速全耗尽CMOS/SOI2000门门海阵列

本文对全耗尽CMOS/SOI 2000门门海进行了研究,阵列采用宏单元结构,每个宏单元包括2×8个基本单元和8条布线通道,其尺寸为:92μm×86μm.2000门门海阵列采用0.8μm全耗尽工艺,实现了101级环形振荡器和4~128级分频器电路,在工作电压为5V时,0.8μm全耗尽CMOS/SOI 101级环振的单级延迟为45ps.     

Refractory MoSi2and MoSi2/polysilicon bulk CMOS Circuits

Refractory MoSi2and MoSi2/polysilicon have been used to fabricate high-performance 3µm bulk CMOS circuits. Thirty-nine stage ring oscillators, with a fan-in and fan-out of 1, exhibit a switching delay/stage of 1.2 to 1.4ns, and a power-delay product of 0.22 to 0.25pJ at a supply voltage of 5V. The power-delay product ranges from 40fJ for a delay of 9ns to 1pJ for a delay of 0.6ns. Self-checking pattern generator circuits implemented with the same technology show an operating frequency as high as 80 MHz, which corresponds to approximate in-circuit delays of 1.2ns/stage.     

Highly doped InGaP/InGaAs/GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT's with 0.35 μmgates

We fabricated 0.35-μm gate-length pseudomorphic HEMT DCFL circuits using a highly doped thin InGaP layer as the electron supply layer. The InGaP/InGaAs/GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT grown by MOVPE is suitable for short gate-length devices with a low supply voltage since it does not show short channel effects even for gate length down to 0.35 μm. We obtained a K value of 555 mS/Vmm and a transconductance g_m of 380 mS/mm for an InGaP layer 18.5 nm thick. Fabricated 51-stage ring oscillators show the basic propagation delay of 11 ps and the power-delay product of 7.3 fJ at supply voltage of V_DD of 1 V, and 13.8 ps and 3.2 fJ at V_DD of 0.6 V for gates 10 μm wide     

65-nm CMOS Voltage-to-Time Converter for 5-GS/s Time-Based ADCs

This paper discusses a voltage-to-time converter (VTC) designed for use in a time-based analog-to-digital converter. The VTC considered in this work is based on a starved-inverter topology. Linearity, delay, and jitter of the VTC are analyzed to facilitate a physical understanding of the circuit performance. The design is experimentally verified in a 65-nm CMOS technology. Measurement results show that the VTC, operating with a 5-GHz clock, has an output delay range of \(\pm 25\,{\text{ ps }}\), 4.4 effective number of bits (ENOB), and output jitter of \(0.5\,\text{ ps }\) RMS while consuming 4 mW of power. The input effective resolution bandwidth (ERBW) of the VTC is measured to be 4.1 GHz, over which the ENOB remains above 3.5 bits. The same VTC, operating with a 7.5-GHz clock, consumes 9.7 mW of power from a 1.2-V supply, has ENOB of >3.8 bits, ERBW of >7 GHz, output jitter of \(0.4\,\text{ ps }\) RMS, and output delay range of \(\pm 25\,\text{ ps }\). The VTC achieves the widest input bandwidth of any VTC reported to date.     

Design techniques for low-voltage high-speed digital bipolarcircuits

This paper describes design techniques for multigigahertz digital bipolar circuits with supply voltages as low as 1.5 V. Examples include a 2/1 multiplexer operating at 1 Gb/s with 1.2 mW power dissipation, a D-latch achieving a maximum speed of 2.2 GHz while dissipating 1.4 mW, two exclusive-OR gates with a delay less than 200 ps and power dissipation of 1.3 mW, and a buffer/level shifter having a delay of 165 ps while dissipating 1.4 mW. The prototypes have been fabricated in a 1.5-μm 12-GHz bipolar technology. Simulations on benchmarks such as frequency dividers and line drivers indicate that, for a 1.5-V supply, the proposed circuits achieve higher speed than their CMOS counterparts designed in a 0.5-μm CMOS process with zero threshold voltage     

超高速CMOS/SOI51级环振电路的研制

利用CMOS/SOI工艺在4英寸SIMOX材料上成功制备出沟道长度为1μm、器件性能良好的CMOS/SOI部分耗尽器件和电路,从单管的开关电流比看,电路可以实现较高速度性能的同时又可以有效抑制泄漏电流.所研制的51级CMOS/SOI环振电路表现出优越的高速度性能,5V电源电压下单门延迟时间达到92ps,同时可工作的电源电压范围较宽,说明CMOS/SOI技术在器件尺寸降低后将表现出比体硅更具吸引力的应用前景.     

Gate-length dependence of the speed of SSI circuits using submicrometer selectively doped heterostructure transistor technology

Frequency dividers and ring oscillators have been fabricated with submicrometer gates on selectively doped AIGaAs/GaAs heterostructure wafers. A divide-by-two frequency divider operated up to 9.15 GHz at room temperature, dissipating 25 mW for the whole circuit at a bias voltage of 1.6 V, with gate length ∼ 0.35 µm. A record propagation delay of 5.8 ps/gate was measured for a 0.35-µm gate 19- stage ring oscillator at 77 K, with a power of 1.76 mW/gate, and a bias voltage of 0.88 V. The maximum switching speed at room temperature was 10.2 ps/gate at 1.03 mW/gate and 0.8 V bias, for a ring oscillator with the same gate length. With a range of gate lengths on the same wafer fabricated by electron-beam lithography, a clear demonstration of gate-length dependence on the propagation delay was observed for both dividers and ring oscillators.     

An integrated high resolution CMOS timing generator based on anarray of delay locked loops

This paper describes the architecture and performance of a new high resolution timing generator used as a building block for time-to-digital converters (TDC) and clock alignment functions. The timing generator is implemented as an array of delay locked loops. This architecture enables a timing generator with subgate delay resolution to be implemented in a standard digital CMOS process. The TDC function is implemented by storing the state of the timing generator signals in an asynchronous pipeline buffer when a hit signal is asserted. The clock alignment function is obtained by selecting one of the timing generator signals as an output clock. The proposed timing generator has been mapped into a 1.0 μm CMOS process and an r.m.s. error of the time taps of 48 ps has been measured with a bin size of 0.15 ns. Used as a TDC device, an r.m.s. error of 76 ps has been obtained, A short overview of the basic principles of major TDC and timing generator architectures is given to compare the merits of the proposed scheme to other alternatives     

A 4-GHz clock system for a high-performance system-on-a-chip design

A digital system's clocks must have not only low jitter, but also well-controlled duty cycles in order to facilitate versatile clocking techniques. Power-supply noise is often the most common and dominant source of jitter on a phase-locked loop's (PLL) output clock. Jitter can be minimized by regulating the supply to the PLL's noise-sensitive analog circuit blocks in order to filter out supply noise. This paper introduces a PLL-based clock generator intended for use in a high-speed highly integrated system-on-a-chip design. The generator produces clocks with accurate duty cycles and phase relationships by means of a high-speed divider design. The PLL also achieves a power-supply rejection ratio (PSRR) greater than 40 dB while operating at frequencies exceeding 4 GHz. The high level of noise rejection exceeds that of earlier designs by using a combination of both passive and active filtering of the PLL's analog supply voltage. The PLL system has been integrated in a 0.15-μm single-poly 5-metal digital CMOS technology. The measured performance indicates that at a 4-GHz output frequency the circuit achieves a PSRR greater than 40 dB. The peak cycle-to-cycle jitter is 25 ps at 700 MHz and a 2.8-GHz VCO frequency with a 500-mV step on the regulator's 3.3-V supply. The total power dissipated by the prototype is 130 mW and its active area is 1.48×1.00 mm²     

High-performance CMOS circuits fabricated by excimer-laser-annealedpoly-Si TFTs on glass substrates

High-performance CMOS circuits are fabricated from excimer-laser-annealed poly-Si TFTs on a glass substrate (300×300 mm). The propagation delay time of the 121 stage CMOS ring oscillators with 0.5 μm gate length is 0.18 nsec at 5 V supply voltage. The maximum operating frequency of the 40-stage shift registers with 1 μm gate length is 133 MHz at 5 V supply voltage. This value is high enough for peripheral CMOS circuits with line-at-a-time addressing     

The delay vernier pattern generation technique

The authors describe a new technique for generating an arbitrary digital data stream with very fine timing resolution. Note that this timing resolution specifies the output edge placement precision, not the bit rate. The resolution is determined by the difference between two propagation delays rather than by an absolute delay. Because this difference can be made very small, the circuit, called the delay vernier generator, can achieve unprecedented timing resolution in a particular circuit technology. Also, this very precise timing is obtained without requiring an extremely high speed clock. The generator architecture includes delay-locked loop calibration mechanisms to compensate for process and temperature variations. A prototype chip was fabricated in a 1.2-μm CMOS technology, and measurements confirmed that resolutions as fine as 100 ps can be achieved reliably     

Ring oscillators fabricated in laser-annealed silicon-on-insulator

Both seven and eleven stage n-MOS ring oscillators with 6 µm channel length have been successfully fabricated in scanning. CW argon laser-annealed polycrystalline silicon islands, which are defined prior to the laser annealing step, on oxide substrates. The ring oscillators, which have a fan-out of three, have a switching delay per stage of 58 nsec and a power-delay product of about 7 pJ operating at a supply voltage (VDD) of 5 volts and switching between VDDand ground. The most serious difficulty encountered during circuit fabrication was the deformation of the silicon islands resulting from laser annealing with extensive laser power density.     

Submicrometer CMOS devices in zone-melting-recrystallized SOI films

CMOS devices with effective channel lengths ranging from 0.7 to 4.0 µm have been fabricated in zone-melting-recrystallized (ZMR) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) films prepared by the graphite-strip-heater technique. Low-temperature processing was utilized to minimize dopant diffusion along subboundaries in the films. Both n- and p-channel devices have low leakage current (<0.1-pA/µm channel width) and good subthreshold characteristics. For ring oscillators with a transistor channel length of 0.8 µm, the propagation delay is 95 ps at a supply voltage of 5 V.     

Design and performance of GaAs normally-off MESFET integrated circuits

DC and transient analyses of GaAs normally-off MESFET integrated circuits are described. The design tradeoffs between device parameters and logic characteristics are discussed for an inverter with a resistive load. By increasing the supply voltage to several times that of the built-in voltage, the propagation delay time can be lowered similar to that when using an active load (current source). To investigate the speed-power performance of the IC's, ring oscillators with different fan-in and fan-out configurations were fabricated. A binary frequency divider which uses a master-slave flip-flop was tested. The maximum counting frequency of the divider was 610 MHz at a supply voltage of 1.5 V. This coincides with the results obtained from the ring oscillators with fan-in/fan-out = 2/2. Comparing the experimental results with the theory, the effective electron mobility in the thin channel layer is expected to be very low. By improving the mobility and shortening the gate length to half a micrometer, practical functioning circuits should operate with an average propagation delay time of less than 100 ps.