A technology related to an electronic circuit, specifically, a phase locked loop or a frequency synthesizing apparatus, is disclosed. The frequency synthesizing apparatus includes an injection locked frequency divider and a replica frequency divider having the same circuit configuration as the injection locked frequency divider. A control value required for self-oscillating at a target frequency using the replica frequency divider is determined. When the injection locked frequency divider fails injection locking on a first attempt, the injection locking may be attempted using the determined control value. On the first attempt, the control value of the injection locked frequency divider may be determined and stored in advance according to a temperature and a supply voltage.

The invention discloses an oscillator, including a voltage switching circuit, a voltage adjustment circuit and a frequency generation circuit. The voltage switching circuit receives an output voltage signal whereby the output voltage signal switches a first input voltage signal to a first voltage level signal and switches a second input voltage signal to a second voltage level signal. The voltage adjustment circuit receives the first voltage level signal and the second voltage level signal, whereby the first voltage level signal and the second voltage level signal generate the first adjustment voltage signal and the second adjustment voltage signal. The frequency generation circuit is connected to the voltage adjustment circuit, and receives the first adjustment voltage signal and the second adjustment voltage signal to generate the first output frequency signal and the second output frequency signal according to the first adjustment voltage signal and the second adjustment voltage signal.

Systems, devices, and methods are described herein for aligning a phase of a ring oscillator and removing jitter. An oscillator includes a resistor bank array, an operational amplifier, a first and second transistor, and a realignment circuit. The resistor bank array has a plurality of resistors configured to generate a first signal. The operational amplifier is coupled to a PLL circuit and is configured to compare a voltage of the PLL circuit with a voltage of the resistor bank array. The first transistor is coupled between the operational amplifier and a ring oscillator. The first transistor is configured to generate a second signal to control a frequency of the ring oscillator during a realignment state. The realignment circuit is coupled to the first transistor and the ring oscillator. The realignment circuit is configured to generate a realignment signal to align the ring oscillator with a first clock signal.

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to various methods and example systems for carrying out analog-to-digital conversion of data acquired by arrays of nanogap sensors. The nanogap sensors described herein may operate as molecular sensors to help identify chemical species through electrical measurements using at least a pair of electrodes separated by a nanogap. In general, the methods and systems proposed herein rely on digitizing the signal as the signal is being integrated, and then integrating the digitized results. With such methods, the higher sample rate used in the digitizer reduces the charge per quantization and, therefore, the size of sampling capacitors used. Consequently, sampling capacitors may be made factors of magnitude smaller, requiring less valuable space on a chip compared to sampling capacitors used in conventional nanogap sensor arrays.

A three-stage differential ring oscillator circuit has a first differential stage, a second differential stage, and a third differential stage and generates six phases (two in each stage) used to form differential in-phase and quadrature-phase clock signals. A cross coupled inverter pair couples the first stage output signals. A second cross coupled inverter pair couples the second stage output signals. A third cross coupled inverter pair couples the third stage output signals. A first interpolator generates a first quadrature-phase clock signal using two phases (one from the positive portion of the second stage and one from the negative portion of the third stage) and a second interpolator generates a second quadrature-phase clock signal using two phases (one from the negative portion of the second stage and one from the positive portion of the third stage). Two phases from the first differential stage form the differential pair of in-phase clock signals.

In one form, a power supply monitor including a current controlled oscillator circuit, a time-to-digital converter, and an output divider. The current controlled oscillator circuit has an input for receiving a power supply voltage to be measured, and an output for providing a frequency signal having a frequency linearly proportional to the power supply voltage. The time-to-digital converter has an input coupled to the output of the current controlled oscillator circuit, and an output for providing a count signal representative of a number of cycles of a reference clock signal per cycle of the frequency signal. The output divider has an input coupled to the output of the time-to-digital converter, and an output for providing a divided count signal representative of a value of the power supply voltage, and provides the divided count signal by dividing a fixed number by the count signal.

Described are apparatus and methods for high frequency clock generation. A circuit includes a phase frequency detector (PFD) which outputs differential error clocks based on comparison of differential reference clocks and differential feedback clocks, which are at a first frequency. A controlled oscillator (CO) connected to the PFD, which adjusts a frequency of the CO based on the differential error clocks to generate differential clocks at a second frequency, which is a multiple of the first frequency. A quadrature clock generator connected to the CO, which generates differential quadrature clocks at the second frequency from the differential clocks, where the differential feedback clocks are generated from the differential clocks and one pair of the differential quadrature clocks. A frequency doubler which doubles each pair of the differential quadrature clocks and outputs fully differential and balanced clocks at a third frequency for distribution, which is a multiple of the second frequency.

A crystal-free wireless device includes a frequency calibration module and a local radio frequency (RF) oscillator having a first frequency and configured to communicate with the frequency calibration module. The crystal-free wireless device also includes a relaxation ring oscillator configured to communicate with the frequency calibration module. The relaxation ring oscillator is further configured to receive a calibration signal or periodic radio frequency packets from a wireless network and provide a reference signal to the frequency calibration module. The relaxation ring oscillator is a crystal-free oscillator. The frequency calibration module is configured to generate a calibration signal that is fed back through a Frequency Locked Loop (FLL) to the local RF oscillator to calibrate the local RF oscillator. The calibrated local RF oscillator is configured to generate a clock signal.

The disclosure discloses a lookup table-based circuit aging detection sensor, including a control circuit, two voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs), two shaping circuits, a phase comparator, a 3-digit voter, a beat-frequency oscillator, an 8-digit counter, a latch, a lookup table array and a digital-analogue converter. The control circuit respectively connects with the phase comparator, the 3-digit voter, the 8-digit counter, the first and the second VCOs. The first and second VCOs connect with the first and second shaping circuits respectively. The first and second shaping circuits connect with the phase comparator. The phase comparator connects with the 3-digit voter. The 3-digit voter connects with the beat-frequency oscillator. The beat-frequency oscillator respectively connects with the 8-digit counter and the latch. The 8-digit counter connects with the latch. The latch connects with the lookup table array. The lookup table array connects with the digital-analogue converter.

Performance measuring circuitry, for determining relative operational performance attributes of different types of a class of semiconductor component disposed on a semiconductor die, includes a first oscillator circuit including a plurality of first circuit element modules having a first circuit topology. The first oscillator circuit provides a first performance indication indicative of a collective performance attribute of all types of components in the class. A second oscillator circuit separate from the first oscillator circuit includes a plurality of second circuit element modules having a second circuit topology, and provides a second performance indication responsive to different contributions from different types of components in the class. A comparison circuit receives outputs of the first and second oscillator circuits and determines the relative performance characteristic of the different types of components. Dice may be binned according to performance, for use in assembly of operational circuits with different performance characteristics.