A 7.1 mW, 10 GHz all digital frequency synthesizer with dynamically reconfigured digital loop filter in 90 nm CMOS technology

A 10 GHz all digital frequency synthesizer (ADPLL) with dynamic digital loop filter is presented. Governed by a proposed locking process monitor (LPM), the digital loop filter is automatically reconfigured during the frequency acquisition and phase tracking process. The loop bandwidth is also self-adjusted during the locking process so as to achieve fast lock and low noise simultaneously. A skew-compensated phase accumulator is proposed for high speed operation, which preserves the advantages of low power dissipation while eliminating the accumulated timing skew issue. With less than 7 μs locking time, the measured rms jitter from a 9.92 GHz carrier is about 0.9 ps. The ADPLL core consumes 7.1 mW from a 1 V supply, and the digital I/O cells drains 2.7 mW from a 3.3 V supply for chip measurement. Implemented in a 90 nm CMOS technology, the core area is only 0.352 mm ².