Nxp USA, Inc.

Olivier Vincent Doaré

Didier Salle

Birama Goumballa

Cristian Pavao Moreira

Dominique Delbecq

Jean-Stephane Vigier

Andres Barrilado Gonzalez

Julien Orlando

A method, device and a radar system for determining phase error caused by impairments in a phase rotator comprises (a) forcing the Q path of the phase rotator to zero and obtaining a first sequence of successive measurement values, (b) forcing the I path of the phase rotator to zero and obtaining a second sequence of successive measurement, (c) forming a sequence of successive measurement value pairs, each measurement value pair comprising one measurement value from the first sequence of successive measurement values and one measurement value from the second sequence of successive measurement values (d) calculating an actual phase value for each of the successive measurement value pairs, and (e) determining the phase error by comparing the actual phase values with the corresponding reference phase values.

Method, device, and radar system

A phase rotator calibration system is provided. The phase rotator calibration system includes a phase rotator portion having input for receiving an input signal and an output for providing an output signal. A calibration portion is coupled to the phase rotator portion. The calibration portion is configured to determine a phase error based on a phase estimation. The phase estimation is generated by way of an arccosine function.

Phase rotator calibration apparatus and method therefor

A communication unit () is described that includes a plurality of cascaded devices that includes at least one master device and at least one slave device configured in a master-slave arrangement. The at least one master device comprises a modulator circuit () configured to: receive a system clock signal and a frame start signal; modulate the system clock signal with the frame start signal to produce a modulated master-slave clock signal (); and transmit the modulated master-slave clock signal () to the at least one slave device. The at least one slave device comprises a demodulator circuit () configured to: receive and demodulate the modulated master-slave clock signal (); and re-create therefrom the system clock signal () and the frame start signal ().

Communication unit and method for clock distribution and synchronization

A communication unit () is described that includes a plurality of cascaded devices that comprise at least one master device () and at least one slave device () configured in a master-slave arrangement. The at least one master device () and at least one slave device () each comprise: an analog-to-digital converter, ADC, () configured to use a same re-created system clock signal () to align respective sampling instants between each ADC (). The at least one master device () comprises: a clock generation circuit comprising an internally-generated reference phase locked loop circuit (), configured to output a system clock signal (); and a modulator circuit () coupled to the clock generation circuit and configured to receive and distribute the system clock signal (). The at least one master device () and at least one slave device () each comprise: a demodulator circuit () configured to receive the distributed system clock signal () and re-create therefrom a synchronized system clock signal () used by a respective ADC, () of each of the the master device () and at least one slave device ().

Communication unit, integrated circuits and method for clock and data synchronization

A method for synchronizing a cascaded RADAR system () includes modulating () with a master RADAR system (), an amplitude of a sequence of clock cycles of a clock () in response to a Ramp Frame Start (RFS) signal (). The master RADAR system determines () a duration () of the sequence of clock cycles based on a code. A slave RADAR system () demodulates () the sequence of clock cycles to recover the clock and the RFS signal, wherein a clock leading edge of the clock is phase aligned to an RFS leading edge of the RFS signal. The slave RADAR system decodes () the code from the duration of the sequence of clock cycles, wherein the code determines an action performed by the slave RADAR system in response to receiving a data signal from the master RADAR system.

Time-encoded messaging for radar cascaded synchronization system

A Time to Digital converter (TDC) may have a Vernier architecture of multiple successive modules arranged in series. Each of the modules may output an indication of a differential in phase between two received signals. Each module may include two signal lines for the received signals, and it may be desirable to calibrate the two signal lines. To this end, a signal output from a proceeding module may be provided to both signal lines of a succeeding module and used as a reference or calibration signal to calibrate the two signal lines of the module.

Growing community of inventors

La Salvetat de Gilles, France

Olivier Vincent Doaré