Hewlett-packard Company

Benny W Lai

Richard Clayton Walker

Thomas Hornak

Jieh-Tsorng Wu

Cheryl L Stout

Donald M Lee

Chu-Sun Yen

Patrick Petruno

A dual input voltage controlled oscillator ('VCO') suitable for use in clock and data recovery ('CDR') systems operating at 100s to 1,000s of MB/sec is described. When a PLL using this VCO is locked onto a data stream of a fixed bit rate, the bang/bang frequency of the VCO does not vary due to process and temperature variation occuring either during manufacture or operation. The VCO is also relatively insensitive to supply voltage variations.

Dual input voltage controlled oscillator with compensated bang/bang

A digital loss-of-signal ('LOS') detector having a trough circuit and a smearing circuit is described. The trough circuit generates a logic output whenever an incoming communication signal is within a predefined voltage range. The output of the trough circuit is applied to the smearing circuit, which generates an LOS output whenever the output of the trough circuit remains at a predefined logic level for a predetermined length of time. In a second embodiment, a state machine is coupled to the output of the smearing circuit, the trough circuit, and a clock, the state machine generating the LOS indication if the output from the smearing circuit remains at the predetermined logic level for at least a predetermined number of clock cycles.

Integrated level detector

An integrator includes a capacitor and a bootstrap circuit for detecting any leaking charge from the capacitor and replacing it. The integrator also includes a charge injection circuit for adjusting the charge applied to the capacitor in response to a digital control input to the charge injection circuit. The bootstrap circuit has two transistors to sense leaking charge, and two further transistors forming a differential pair. The bootstrap circuit uses positive feedback and unity gain to replenish the lost charge.

Unity gain positive feedback integrator with programmable charging

An out of lock condition is sensed on a data transition by transition basis in clock recovery apparatus. When an out of lock condition is sensed, a range sweeping signal is generated and summed with the correction signal to sweep the frequency of the clock signal over the frequency range of the VCO. When an out of lock condition is absent, i.e., when the VCO is phase locked, simulated data transitions are generated in the frequency/phase detector. An out of lock condition is sensed by a D flip-flop. Data is coupled to the clock input of the flip-flop, the clock signal is delayed by a fraction of its nominal period and coupled to the D input of the flip-flop. The state of the Q output of the flip-flop indicates an out of lock condition.

Clock recovery apparatus with means for sensing an out of lock condition

DC-free line code and bit and frame synchronization for arbitrary data

A method and apparatus for recovering a clock signal from a random NRZ data signal is shown to include a phase detector for detecting the phase difference between the random NRZ data signal and a clock signal and for generating a phase signal representative of the phase difference. The phase signal is a binary signal having first and second logic levels, wherein the first logic level is representative of the clock signal having an early phase relationship with the data signal and wherein the second logic level is representative of the clock signal having a late phase relationship with the data signal. Clock recovery also incorporates an integrator for integrating the phase signal over a period of time and for generating an integration signal representative of such integration and an oscillator for generating the clock signal at a clock frequency responsive to both the phase signal and the integration signal. The clock frequency is determined by a centering factor and an offset factor. The centering factor is controlled by the phase signal. There is also shown a particular phase detector, several integrators and a preferred oscillator for practicing the invention.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Benny W Lai