A synthesizer circuit to generate a local oscillator carrier signal for a baseband signal includes a controlled oscillator comprising a phase lock loop and an oscillator configured to generate an oscillating signal. A pulling compensation circuit is configured to generate a correction signal for a present output of the phase locked loop using information on an error of the oscillating signal, information on a present sample of a baseband signal and a preceding correction signal for a preceding output of the phase locked loop.

Enhancing the accuracy in compensating errors caused by a reference signal with unequal successive periods in a fractional-N phase locked loop (PLL). A compensation block generates a compensation factor, and is implemented based on a correction block and a filter. The correction block generates a correction signal containing a first frequency correction factor and a second frequency correction factor for a first period and a second period constituting each pair of successive periods, with the correction signal also containing a noise component at direct current (DC). The filter operates to remove the noise component at DC from the correction signal to generate a compensation factor containing the first frequency correction factor and the second frequency correction factor. The compensation factor thus generated may be provided as an input to a division factor generator of a frequency divider block of the PLL, potentially resulting in zero error frequency synthesis.

In an embodiment, an apparatus includes an integrated circuit (IC) chip configured to receive a timing signal and a reference clock signal. The IC chips is configured to a reference time signal based on the timing signal and the reference clock signal. The IC chip includes a phase lock loop (PLL). The PLL is synchronized based on the reference time signal.

Described herein are systems and methods that provide for asymmetric image splitter image stream applications. In one embodiment, a system supporting image multi-streaming comprises an asymmetric image splitter engine that splits super-frame image streams into two or more image streams and a fractional clock divider circuit. The fractional clock divider may comprise a digital feedback control loop and a one-bit sigma delta modulator. The fractional clock divider circuit may provide compatible display clock frequencies for each of the two or more image streams. When a multi-image stream comprises the two image streams, the asymmetric image splitter engine adjusts a vertical asymmetry of a first image stream with a shortest height to same height as a second image stream by adding vertical padding to the first image stream. The super-frame image streams may comprise image streams from video, LIDAR, radar, or other sensors.

A digital phase-locked loop (DPLL) may include a time-to-digital converter (TDC) to provide a phase error signal, a frequency-divider to perform frequency division on an output signal to generate a frequency-divided output signal, a delta-sigma-modulator (DSM) to provide a test signal that represents a quantization error of the DSM, and a digital-to-time converter (DTC) to at least partially remove the quantization error from the frequency-divided output signal based on the test signal to generate the feedback signal. The DPLL may include a circuit to cause the DTC to provide a percentage of the quantization error such that the percentage of the quantization error is in the phase error signal, and a TDC calibration component to calibrate the TDC by applying a gain adjustment factor to the TDC. The gain adjustment factor may be based on the test signal and the phase error signal including the percentage of the quantization error.

A method for controlling a phase-locked loop circuit, can include: acquiring values of a voltage-controlled oscillator capacitor array control signal respectively corresponding to desired values of a frequency control word signal and acquiring values of a charge pump current control signal respectively corresponding to the desired values of the frequency control word signal in a calibration mode, where the frequency control word signal characterizes a ratio of a desired locked frequency to a frequency of a reference signal; and determining a target value of the voltage-controlled oscillator capacitor array control signal corresponding to a target value of the frequency control word signal and a target value of the charge pump current control signal corresponding to the target value of the frequency control word signal in a phase-locked mode, in order to control the phase-locked loop circuit to achieve phase lock.

Nested phase-locked loops (PLLs) utilize resonators of different quality factors, oscillation frequencies, and tunability. A reference clock signal for a first PLL is based on a free running bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator. The first PLL utilizes an LC oscillator as a voltage controlled oscillator. A crystal oscillator supplies a reference clock signal to a second PLL. Feedback dividers of the first and second PLLs are coupled to the LC oscillator. A delta sigma modulator coupled to the loop filter of the second PLL controls the feedback divider of the first PLL. The first PLL utilizes a high update rate to ensure that the jitter power spectral density is spread over a wide frequency range. The nested PLL architecture allows the overall phase noise plot to follow that of the crystal resonator at low frequencies, the BAW resonator at mid-frequencies, and the LC resonator at high frequencies.

The present invention provides a fractional-N frequency synthesizer comprising a divider controller comprising a multistage noise Shaping (MASH) digital delta-sigma modulator comprising L error feedback modulator (EFM) stages, wherein the jth EFM stage is configured to receive as an input the sum of the error of the preceding EFM stage and a high amplitude dither signal derived from the error of the kth EFM stage, where 1≤j≤k≤L.

A division factor generator of a feedback divider block in a fractional-N phase locked loop (PLL). The division factor generator is enabled to operate with larger values of division factors without increased complexity of an internal modulator core implemented, for example, as a delta-sigma modulator (DSM) having a signal transfer function (STF), wherein the STF always generates only an integer value as an output in response to an integer value received as input.

Nested phase-locked loops (PLLs) utilize resonators of different quality factors, oscillation frequencies, and tunability. A reference clock signal for a first PLL is based on a free running bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonator. The first PLL utilizes an LC oscillator as a voltage controlled oscillator. A crystal oscillator supplies a reference clock signal to a second PLL. Feedback dividers of the first and second PLLs are coupled to the LC oscillator. A delta sigma modulator coupled to the loop filter of the second PLL controls the feedback divider of the first PLL. The first PLL utilizes a high update rate to ensure that the jitter power spectral density is spread over a wide frequency range. The nested PLL architecture allows the overall phase noise plot to follow that of the crystal resonator at low frequencies, the BAW resonator at mid-frequencies, and the LC resonator at high frequencies.