An apparatus for mitigating nonlinearity-induced spurs and noise in a fractional-N frequency synthesizer

A digital delta-sigma modulator (DDSM) is disclosed with an input signal x[n], an output signal y[n], a quantization error signal e[n] and a dither signal d[n], having an equation described in the z-domain by

Y(z)=STF(z)X(z)+DTF(z)D(z)−NTF(z)E(z)

wherein Y(z), X(z), D(z) andE(z) are z-transforms of the output signal, the input signal, the dither signal, and the quantization error signal, and wherein STF (z), DTF(z) and NTF(z) correspond to a transfer function of the input signal, a transfer function of the dither signal, and a transfer function of the quantization error signal, and wherein the transfer function of the quantization error signal is of the form:

[00001]$\mathrm{NTF}\left(z\right)={\mathrm{Az}}^{-Q}\left(1-z^{-1}\right)\left(1+\underset{i=1}{\overset{K}{.Math.}}{c}_i{z}^{-i}\right)$

where A , Q and K are constants, coefficients c.sub.i are real valued and c.sub.K≠0 and wherein at least one of the zeroes z.sub.j of

[00002]$\left(1+\underset{i=1}{\overset{K}{.Math.}}{c}_i{z}^{-i}\right)$

satisfies z.sub.j≠+1 for j=1, 2, . . . , K

A digital PWM modulator modulates a digital input signal to drive a PWM signal to a PWM DAC susceptible to introducing inter-symbol interference (ISI) in small PWM edge separation presence causing audio THDN degradation. A multi-bit quantizer switches from a first to second mode when the input signal rises above a threshold. The quantizer quantizes the input signal into a quantized output signal, each sample of which has a code selected from respective first and second quantization code sets. The second set, relative to the first set, causes the digital PWM signal to have increased edge separation to reduce the ISI at high input levels. The first set includes small magnitude codes relative to the second set to reduce quantization noise at low input levels. The threshold is sufficiently low to cause the quantized output signal to be dominated by small codes when operating in the first mode.

The disclosure relates to a microphone assembly comprising a multibit analog-to-digital converter configured to receive, sample, and quantize a microphone signal to generate N-bit digital microphone samples representative of the microphone signal at a first sampling frequency. The microphone assembly also comprises a first digital-to-digital converter configured to receive, quantize, and noise-shape the N-bit digital microphone samples to generate a corresponding M-bit Pulse Density Modulated (PDM) signal, wherein N and M are positive integers, and N>M. The microphone assembly may comprise a SoundWire compliant data interface configured to repeatedly receive samples of the M-bit PDM signal and write bits of the M-bit PDM signal to a SoundWire data frame.

A digital PWM modulator modulates a digital input signal to drive a PWM signal to a PWM DAC susceptible to introducing inter-symbol interference (ISI) in small PWM edge separation presence causing audio THDN degradation. A multi-bit quantizer switches from a first to second mode when the input signal rises above a threshold. The quantizer quantizes the input signal into a quantized output signal, each sample of which has a code selected from respective first and second quantization code sets. The second set, relative to the first set, causes the digital PWM signal to have increased edge separation to reduce the ISI at high input levels. The first set includes small magnitude codes relative to the second set to reduce quantization noise at low input levels. The threshold is sufficiently low to cause the quantized output signal to be dominated by small codes when operating in the first mode.

A ΔΣ frequency to digital converter includes digital feedback to an accumulator in a ring phase calculator that provides the converter output, which reduces implantation complexity. Digital gain correction is applicable to dual mode ring oscillator converters and charge pump converters, provides compensation for forward path gain error and eliminates the need to include analog gain correction in feedback. Asynchronous sampling includes correction logic to compensate for arbitrary initial conditions. A digitally-controlled oscillator (DCO) control technique causes the DCO frequency to increase or decrease by changing the state of one its frequency control elements at a time.

A signal density modulation (SDM) encoder includes a first subtractor, a sigma circuit and a multi-bit quantizer. The first subtractor is used for receiving an input signal. The sigma circuit is coupled to the first subtractor. The multi-bit quantizer, coupled to the first subtractor and the sigma circuit, is configured to generate an output signal. The sigma circuit or the multi-bit quantizer produces a first feedback signal to the first subtractor. The first subtractor performs a subtraction operation according to the first feedback signal and the input signal, and generates a delta signal. The sigma circuit performs an operation on the delta signal, such that the SDM encoder has a noise transfer function having a high pass filtering effect. The noise transfer function is a ratio of a quantization error brought by the multi-bit quantizer with respect to the input signal. The output signal has more than two levels.

A ΔΣ frequency to digital converter includes digital feedback to an accumulator in a ring phase calculator that provides the converter output, which reduces implantation complexity. Digital gain correction is applicable to dual mode ring oscillator converters and charge pump converters, provides compensation for forward path gain error and eliminates the need to include analog gain correction in feedback. Asynchronous sampling includes correction logic to compensate for arbitrary initial conditions. A digitally-controlled oscillator (DCO) control technique causes the DCO frequency to increase or decrease by changing the state of one its frequency control elements at a time.

A system may include a modulator configured to generate a modulated data stream of samples from an input signal wherein each value of data in the modulated data stream when encoded is represented by a multi-bit code, wherein the modulator comprises a quantizer configured to quantize the modulated data stream from the input signal and feed back the modulated data stream as a feedback signal to an input of the modulator and a memory configured to store one or more samples of the modulated data stream. The system may also include an encoder configured to generate a synchronized serialized code stream from the modulated data stream. The quantizer may be configured to, based on the one or more samples of the modulated data stream stored in the memory, constrain the modulated data stream such that a synchronization state of the synchronized serialized code stream generated by the encoder is determinable based on the synchronized serialized code stream.

What is provided is a subtractor, as a re-quantization device, which is configured to detect re-quantization noise, a discrete time filter which is configured to perform frequency weighting on the detected re-quantization noise, an adder which is configured to add an additional signal to quantization noise, and an additional signal selector which is configured to select a value at the present time of a column of an additional signal for minimizing the magnitude of quantization noise having been subjected to frequency weighting evaluated one sampling or more later.

An apparatus for dynamic range enhancement (DRE) which receives an input signal and provides a DRE output signal is presented. The apparatus has an error correction circuit to apply an error correction factor to the input signal such that the DRE output signal provided by the apparatus is dependent on the input signal and the error correction factor. The error correction factor is representative of an error generated by the apparatus.