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US 9,429,919 B2Granted
Low power bipolar 360 degrees time to digital converter
AssigneeIntel Deutschland GmbH
InventorMarkus Schimper
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A delay line operates to propagate a plurality of delay stages comprising a first delay element and a second delay element. A generator coupled to the delay line is configured to provide the start edge to the plurality of delay stages of the delay line as a function of a digital control oscillator (DCO) counter value generated by a DCO counter. A DCO calculation component is configured to facilitate a determination of propagation counts of the delay line as a function of DCO periods of a DCO.
Claims20
A time to digital converter comprising:
- a delay line comprising a plurality of delay stages that include a first delay chain and a second delay chain to generate a fine time measurement of a digital oscillator of a phase locked loop;
- a coarse time calculation component configured to generate a coarse time measurement based on equidistant periods and non-equidistant periods of the digital oscillator of the phase locked loop, wherein the fine time measurement and the coarse time measurement form a phase difference measurement of the phase locked loop that is communicated to the digital oscillator;
- and
- an edge selector configured to compare a reference signal of a reference clock and a divider signal of a divider clock and generate a start signal and a stop signal to a phase generator based thereon, and further configured to generate a sign value and provide the sign value to the coarse time calculation component, wherein the sign value is generated based on an order of a receiving edge of the reference signal and the divider signal, respectively.
1 more element
A time to digital converter comprising:
- a delay line comprising a plurality of delay stages that include a first delay chain and a second delay chain to generate a fine time measurement of a digital oscillator of a phase locked loop;
- and
- a coarse time calculation component configured to generate a coarse time measurement based on equidistant periods and non-equidistant periods of the digital oscillator of the phase locked loop, wherein the fine time measurement and the coarse time measurement form a phase difference measurement of the phase locked loop that is communicated to the digital oscillator;
- wherein the coarse time calculation component is further configured to generate the coarse time measurement based on a set of modulated frequency values from a polar modulator, a digital oscillator counter value and a sign value generated from an edge selector, wherein the coarse time calculation component utilizes the sign value to calculate a time of a non-equidistant digital oscillator period.
1 more element
A time to digital converter comprising:
- a delay line comprising a plurality of delay stages that include a first delay chain and a second delay chain to generate a fine time measurement of a digital oscillator of a phase locked loop;
- a coarse time calculation component configured to generate a coarse time measurement based on equidistant periods and non-equidistant periods of the digital oscillator of the phase locked loop, wherein the fine time measurement and the coarse time measurement form a phase difference measurement of the phase locked loop that is communicated to the digital oscillator;
- and
- a phase generator configured to control propagation and latching of delay line states of first delay elements and second delay elements of the plurality of delay stages based on a conversion of a received start signal and a received stop signal into a start edge and a stop edge that propagate along the plurality of delay stages, wherein the delay line is configured to generate a bipolar time measurement without an intrinsic offset.
1 more element
A mobile device comprising:
- an antenna port;
- an RF-frontend coupled to the antenna port;
- and
- a digital baseband processor coupled to the RF-frontend;
- wherein the RF-frontend comprises:
- a digital phase locked loop including a time to digital converter coupled to a digital oscillator, wherein the time to digital converter comprises a delay line comprising a plurality of delay stages that include a first delay element chain and a second delay element chain to generate a fine time measurement;
- and
- a coarse time calculation component, coupled to the delay line and the digital oscillator, configured to generate a coarse time quantization based on digital oscillator periods of the digital oscillator, wherein the coarse time calculation component is configured to generate the coarse time quantization based on a set of frequency values of a frequency modulator, a digital oscillator counter value and a sign value, wherein the coarse time calculation component utilizes the sign value to calculate a time of a non-equidistant digital oscillator period.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.