Importance

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Abstract

The voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) in a frequency synthesizer using a phase-locked loop (PLL) is calibrated digitally during power up. The VCO has a coarse frequency control and a fine frequency control. The coarse control is a digital phase-locked loop to quantize the broad frequency range into limited number of frequency steps with a clock frequency divided from the VCO frequency, and to hold the phase-locked dc control voltage for the fine control. By limiting the number of frequency steps and clocking at a divided frequency of the VCO, the coarse control is speeded up. The fine control is [connected to the charge pump output as in] a regular PLL. By searching for the optimal control setting, the center frequency of the VCO is trimmed close to the wanted frequency for the PLL to lock. This allows small VCO gain without losing the tolerance of process and temperature variations. As a result, the PLL phase noise performance is improved.

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First Claim