An apparatus including semiconductor dies in a stack. The semiconductor dies are configured to power-up in a staggered manner. Methods for powering up an electronic device include detecting a power-up event with the semiconductor dies in the stack, and responsive to the power-up event, powering up a first semiconductor die in the stack at a first time, and powering up a second semiconductor die in the stack at a second time that is different from the first time.

An electronic circuit includes a native N-channel Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (NMOS) transistor and a P-channel Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (PMOS) transistor. The gates of the native NMOS transistor and the PMOS transistor and the source of the native NMOS transistor are grounded. The drains of the native NMOS transistor and the PMOS transistors are connected to one another and to an output port, and the source of the PMOS transistor is connected to an input voltage.

A low-power, high-performance source-synchronous chip interface which provides rapid turn-on and facilitates high signaling rates between a transmitter and a receiver located on different chips is described in various embodiments. Some embodiments of the chip interface include, among others: a segmented “fast turn-on” bias circuit to reduce power supply ringing during the rapid power-on process; current mode logic clock buffers in a clock path of the chip interface to further reduce the effect of power supply ringing; a multiplying injection-locked oscillator (MILO) clock generator to generate higher frequency clock signals from a reference clock; a digitally controlled delay line which can be inserted in the clock path to mitigate deterministic jitter caused by the MILO clock generator; and circuits for periodically re-evaluating whether it is safe to retime transmit data signals in the reference clock domain directly with the faster clock signals.

A low-power, high-performance source-synchronous chip interface which provides rapid turn-on and facilitates high signaling rates between a transmitter and a receiver located on different chips is described in various embodiments. Some embodiments of the chip interface include, among others: a segmented “fast turn-on” bias circuit to reduce power supply ringing during the rapid power-on process; current mode logic clock buffers in a clock path of the chip interface to further reduce the effect of power supply ringing; a multiplying injection-locked oscillator (MILO) clock generator to generate higher frequency clock signals from a reference clock; a digitally controlled delay line which can be inserted in the clock path to mitigate deterministic jitter caused by the MILO clock generator; and circuits for periodically re-evaluating whether it is safe to retime transmit data signals in the reference clock domain directly with the faster clock signals.

The Data Recovery with Inverse Transformation (DRIT) comprises methods and systems for reversing transmission channel transfer function in order to achieve a direct recovery of original data from a received signal distorted by a transmission link.

A clock and data recovery (CDR) system may use one or more clock signals in sync with recovered data rate. By accumulating a dithering tuning counter value at a data oversampling rate, a plurality of single bit signals at multiples of the recovered data rate and in sync with the recovered data rate can be accurately generated while utilizing the full range of the accumulator. This plurality of clock signals can be used in various modules in the CDR system and other modules in a transceiver system incorporating the CDR system.

A clock and data recovery (CDR) system may use one or more clock signals in sync with recovered data rate. By accumulating a dithering tuning counter value at a data oversampling rate, a plurality of single bit signals at multiples of the recovered data rate and in sync with the recovered data rate can be accurately generated while utilizing the full range of the accumulator. This plurality of clock signals can be used in various modules in the CDR system and other modules in a transceiver system incorporating the CDR system.

A voltage supply circuit for an electronic circuit includes a switch configured to selectively connect a supply input of the electronic circuit with a main supply voltage source. An auxiliary voltage supply unit has an auxiliary voltage output coupled to the supply input of the electronic circuit. The auxiliary voltage supply unit is configured to at least temporarily output an auxiliary voltage to the supply input. The auxiliary voltage has a voltage level lower than a voltage level of a main supply voltage supplied by the main supply voltage source.

Embodiments of an integrated circuit (IC) comprising circuitry to determine settings for an injection-locked oscillator (ILO) are described. In some embodiments, an injection signal is generated based on a first clock edge of a reference clock signal, and is injected into an ILO. Next, one or more output signals of the ILO are sampled based on a second clock edge of the reference clock signal, and settings for the ILO are determined based on the samples. In some embodiments, a sequence of two or more time-to-digital (TDC) codes is generated based on a reference clock signal and a free-running ILO. In some embodiments, the TDC circuitry that is already present in a delay-locked loop is reused for determining the sequence of two or more TDC codes. The ILO settings can then be determined based on the sequence of two or more TDC codes.

An apparatus includes an oscillation ring comprising N oscillators, where N is an even integer that is greater than 3, the N oscillators connected in series in a loop by N connection nodes, each oscillator of the N oscillators comprising a pair of cross-coupled inverting amplifiers. The apparatus also includes N inductors arranged in a star configuration such that each inductor of the N inductors connects to a corresponding connection node of the oscillation ring and a common connection node of the star configuration. The apparatus may also include N capacitor banks. Each of the N capacitor banks may include a plurality of activation switches for loading a corresponding oscillator with capacitance. A method includes providing the above apparatus and activating selected activation switches to adjust an oscillation frequency for the oscillation ring toward a desired value.