A Multi-Path Gated Ring Oscillator TDC With First-Order Noise Shaping

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 44; no. 4; pp. 1089 - 1098
• Main Authors: Straayer, M.Z., Perrott, M.H.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.04.2009; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Calibration; Charge pumps; Circuit properties; Circuits; Clocks; CMOS; Consumption; Delay; Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing; Digital circuits; Digital filters; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Frequency synthesizers; Integrated circuits; Linearity; Noise; Noise levels; Noise shaping; Oscillators; Oscillators, resonators, synthetizers; phase detector; Phase locked loops; quantizer; ring oscillator; Ring oscillators; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Signal convertors; Signal generators; time-to-digital converter; quantizer; Noise-shaping; Digital converter; Noise shaping; Calibration; Ring oscillator; Phase detector; time-to-digital converter; Complementary MOS technology; First order; Time to digital conversion; Time converter; Delay time; Root mean square value
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2009.2014709

An 11-bit, 50-MS/s time-to-digital converter (TDC) using a multipath gated ring oscillator with 6 ps of effective delay per stage demonstrates 1st-order noise shaping. At frequencies below 1 MHz, the TDC error integrates to 80 fs (rms) for a dynamic range of 95 dB with no calibration required. The 157 times 258 mum TDC is realized in 0.13 mum CMOS and, depending on the time difference between input edges, consumes 2.2 to 21 mA from a 1.5 V supply.