A DCVSL Delay Cell for Fast Low Power Frequency Synthesis Applications

In this paper, a low-cost, power efficient and fast Differential Cascode Voltage-Switch-Logic (DCVSL) based delay cell (named DCVSL-R) is proposed. We use the DCVSL-R cell to implement high frequency and power-critical delay cells and flip-flops of ring oscillators and frequency dividers. When compared to TSPC, DCVSL circuits offer small input and clock capacitance and a symmetric differential loading for previous RF stages. When compared to CML, they offer low transistor count, no headroom limitation, rail-to-rail swing and no static current consumption. However, DCVSL circuits suffer from a large low-to-high propagation delay, which limits their speed and results in asymmetrical output waveforms. The proposed DCVSL-R circuit embodies the benefits of DCVSL while reducing the total propagation delay, achieving faster operation. DCVSL-R also generates symmetrical output waveforms which are critical for differential circuits. Another contribution of this work is a closed-form delay model that predicts the speed of DCVSL circuits with 8% worst case accuracy. We implement two ring-oscillator-based VCOs in 0.13 μm technology with DCVSL and DCVSL-R delay cells. Measurements show that the proposed DCVSL-R based VCO consumes 30% less power than the DCVSL VCO for the same oscillation frequency (2.4 GHz) and same phase noise (-113 dBc/Hz at 10 MHz). DCVSL-R circuits are also used to implement the high frequency dual modulus prescaler (DMP) of a 2.4 GHz frequency synthesizer in 0.18 μm technology. The DMP consumes only 0.8 mW at 2.48 GHz, a 40% reduction in power when compared to other reported DMPs with similar division ratios and operating frequencies. The RF buffer that drives the DMP consumes only 0.27 mW, demonstrating the lowest combined DMP and buffer power consumption among similar synthesizers in literature.