A 250μW 2.4GHz Fast-Lock Fractional-N Frequency Generation for Ultra-Low-Power Applications

Abstract

This brief presents a fast-lock 2.4-GHz fractional-N phase-locked loop (PLL) for ultralow-power applications. To minimize the power consumed by all the other circuits except for the main oscillator, we propose a master-slave PLL structure in which a low-frequency master PLL is followed by a slave injection-locked oscillator operating at high frequency. A frequency-error compensation circuit is also implemented in the slave oscillator to eliminate possible drift in the free-running frequency. With a fractional-N coarse-lock unit in the master PLL and a fine frequency initialization unit in the slave oscillator, the PLL supports two fast-lock modes: 1) start-up locking from deep-power-down mode and 2) instantaneous relocking from standby mode. The implemented PLL in 65-nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) consumes 250 μW from a 0.8-V supply, demonstrating a power efficiency of 0.102 mW/GHz. The PLL performs the two fast-lock operations with lock times of less than 22 μs from deep power down and 1 μs from standby, respectively.