University College Dublin

Filippo Schembari

Robert Bogdan Staszewski

Imran Bashir

A novel and useful time mode analog to digital converter (ADC) that employs injection locking to overcome the nonlinearities of the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO). The oscillator's frequency is modulated using injection locking rather than varying its supply voltage. The oscillator is injection locked with a vector modulated signal, the frequency of which is derived from the oscillator itself. The output of the oscillator is modulated by the input voltage V(t). The output of the modulator is at the same frequency as the oscillator with an envelope (i.e. amplitude) determined by V(t). This signal is injected back into the oscillator at one or more points. The frequency of the oscillator &#x3c9;(t) changes in order to satisfy the Barkhausen criteria for oscillation. Alternatively, each stage of a ring oscillator (RO) incorporates its own mixer (i.e. modulator) and a vector modulated signal is injected into all stages of the RO simultaneously yielding uniform phase resolution across the RO, enhancement of the VCO gain, and improved figure of merit (FoM).

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Filippo Schembari