Digitally controlled oscillators
First Claim
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1. A digitally-controlled oscillator comprising:
- an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units presenting an electrical characteristic at an output thereof, each tuning unit including a variable capacitor;
a driver unit coupled to the variable capacitor of each tuning unit via an RC circuit; and
a storage element associated with each tuning unit for storing a data bit in accordance with a received address bit corresponding thereto,wherein the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit is controlled through the driver unit associated therewith in accordance with the associated stored data bit, the electrical characteristics of all of the tuning units of the array combining to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator.
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Abstract
The problems of large oscillator signal frequency change per bit, small runtime tuning bandwidth, and large wiring layout (and therefore large integrated circuit (IC) layout) in digitally-controlled oscillators are addressed by using an array of addressable tuning units, storing a data bit with respect to each tuning unit, and based on the data bit and an address bit, adjusting the output of each tuning unit.
17 Citations
32 Claims
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1. A digitally-controlled oscillator comprising:
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an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units presenting an electrical characteristic at an output thereof, each tuning unit including a variable capacitor; a driver unit coupled to the variable capacitor of each tuning unit via an RC circuit; and a storage element associated with each tuning unit for storing a data bit in accordance with a received address bit corresponding thereto, wherein the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit is controlled through the driver unit associated therewith in accordance with the associated stored data bit, the electrical characteristics of all of the tuning units of the array combining to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 15, 18)
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6. A digitally-controlled oscillator comprising:
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an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units presenting an electrical characteristic at an output thereof, the array being a two-dimensional array, the tuning units being arranged in rows and columns; an addressing unit, coupled to the tuning unit array, decodes a tuning control word to generate addressing signals for uniquely addressing each tuning unit, the addressing unit comprising; a row binary-to-decimal decoder for decoding a first set of tuning control word bits to generate row-addressing signals to uniquely address each tuning unit row; and a column binary-to-decimal decoder for decoding a second set of the tuning control word bits to generate column-addressing signals to uniquely address each tuning unit column, wherein each pair of the row and column-addressing signals received at a tuning unit are combined therein using an AND gate to generate the addressing bit thereof, and the first and second bit sets are non-overlapping; and a storage element associated with each tuning unit for storing a data bit in accordance with the generated addressing bit corresponding thereto, wherein the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit is controlled in accordance with the associated stored data bit, the electrical characteristics of all of the tuning units of the array combining to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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16. A digitally-controlled oscillator comprising:
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an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units including a variable capacitor and presenting a tuning capacitance of the respective tuning unit at an output thereof; a fine control unit for presenting a fine control capacitance at an output thereof in response to a fine control word; and a storage element associated with each tuning unit of the array for storing a data bit in accordance with a received address bit corresponding thereto, wherein the tuning capacitance of each tuning unit is controlled in accordance with the associated stored data bit, the tuning capacitance of all of the tuning units of the array combining to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator, and wherein the tuning capacitance corresponds to a coarser granularity in frequency change than the fine control capacitance.
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17. A digitally-controlled oscillator comprising:
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an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units presenting an electrical characteristic at an output thereof; and a storage element associated with each tuning unit for storing a data bit in accordance with a received address bit corresponding thereto, wherein the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit is controlled in accordance with the associated stored data bit, the electrical characteristics of all of the tuning units of the array combining to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator, the frequency of an oscillator output signal tracking frequency variations of a signal having frequency at least approximately equal to 6 GHz.
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19. A method of controlling an oscillator signal frequency comprising:
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providing an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units presenting an electrical characteristic at an output thereof, and each of the tuning units including a variable capacitor; coupling a driver unit to the variable capacitor of each tuning unit using an RC circuit, wherein the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit is controlled through a driver unit associated therewith; storing a unique data bit with respect to each of the tuning units of the array in accordance with a received addressing bit corresponding thereto; and controlling the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit in accordance with the associated stored data bit, wherein the electrical characteristics of all of the tuning units combine to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator. - View Dependent Claims (26, 31)
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20. A method of controlling an oscillator signal frequency comprising:
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providing an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units presenting an electrical characteristic at an output thereof, wherein the array is a two-dimensional array, the tuning units of the array being arranged in rows and columns; storing a data bit with respect to each of the tuning units of the array in accordance with a received addressing bit corresponding thereto; controlling the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit in accordance with the associated stored data bit; providing an addressing unit coupled to the tuning unit array; and decoding a tuning control word at the addressing unit for generating addressing signals to uniquely address each tuning unit, comprising; decoding a first set of tuning control word bits to generate row-addressing signals to uniquely address each tuning unit row; and decoding a second set of the tuning control word bits to generate column-addressing signals to uniquely address each tuning unit column, wherein the first and second bit sets are non-overlapping, wherein the electrical characteristics of all of the tuning units combine to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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32. A method of controlling an oscillator signal frequency comprising:
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providing an array of addressable tuning units, each of the tuning units presenting an electrical characteristic at an output thereof; storing a unique data bit with respect to each of the tuning units of the array in accordance with a received addressing bit corresponding thereto; and controlling the electrical characteristic of each tuning unit in accordance with the associated stored data bit, wherein the electrical characteristics of all of the tuning units combine to control a frequency of an output signal of the oscillator, and wherein the frequency of the oscillator signal tracks frequency variations of a signal having a frequency at least approximately equal to 6 GHz.
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Specification