A 14 mW Fractional-N PLL Modulator With a Digital Phase Detector and Frequency Switching Scheme

In this work an all-digital phase detector for a fractional-N PLL is proposed and demonstrated. The phase detector consists of a single flip-flop, which acts as an oversampled 1 bit phase quantizer. A digital sampling scheme that enables FSK modulation rates much larger than the loop bandwidth is demonstrated, without compromising on the frequency accuracy of the output signal. A prototype 2.2 GHz fractional-N synthesizer incorporating the digital phase detector and sampling scheme is presented as a proof of concept. Although the loop bandwidth is only 142 kHz, an FSK modulation rate of 927.5 kbs is achieved. The 0.7 mm2prototype is implemented in 0.13 mum CMOS consumes 14 mW from a 1.4 V supply.