1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to phase-locked loops (PLLs) and more particularly to use of a voltage controlled oscillator in a time to digital converter.
2. Description of the Related Art
Quantization noise cancellation within a fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) is a well-known technique that has been used for decades. FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art analog fractional-N PLL where the VCOCLK 101 is a non-integer multiple of the reference clock (RefCLK) 103. The fractional-N divider 107 supplies a feedback signal (divout) 108 to a phase and frequency detector (PFD) and charge pump 110 that determines the time difference between edges of the RefCLK signal 103 and the feedback signal 108 and supplies a phase error signal based on the time difference to the loop filter 119. Quantization noise is introduced because the divide value 105 supplied to the fractional-N divider 107 is modulated in time to achieve an average divide value corresponding to the desired divide value 109 supplied to the delta sigma modulator logic 111. The delta sigma (Δ−Σ) modulator logic 111 supplies a digital error signal 115 based on the difference between the divide value 105 supplied to the fractional-N divider and the desired divide value 109. State of the art approaches to achieve quantization noise cancellation include using a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) 117 having a current-based output to convert the digital error signal 115 to a current that is added to the charge pump output signal and supplied to the loop filter 119. Other prior art approaches utilize digital cancellation of the quantization noise in the case of digital PLLs. For the analog PLL case, the use of the current DAC leads to increased power and area when striving for low noise. For the digital PLL case, the use of all digital cancellation relies on having a high performance Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) that has adequately high resolution and linearity to achieve a desired level of phase noise performance. The implementation of such a TDC can be quite challenging when excellent noise performance is desired of the PLL. Accordingly, improvements in quantization noise cancellation are desirable.