[SI-LIST] Re: Phase/Frequency Detector!

  • From: steve weir <weirsp@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Paul Levin <levinpa@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 15:46:34 -0700

Paul,

I am familiar with the 9901.  It is a good approach, and I believe they 
took out a patent on it around 1990.  There they trade off the dead-band of 
most PFD's for the DC operating point headaches of the XOR 
multiplier.  There are a couple of ways to work the operating point problem 
if the phase alignment needs to remain dead on.  With today's fast 
programmable logic and a little care it is feasible to shrink the dead-band 
to near zero.  Often the resulting wander is better than the approach of 
the 9901.

The bias current resistor approach is very popular with the PC clock 
generator crowd and works very well provided that the offset applied covers 
not only the dead-band but any disturbances such as power 
supply.  Occasionally the fixed offset pulse trick can introduce some 
problems in the form of hysteresis in the transfer function, but usually is 
about as good as the bias resistor.

On an amusing note, one time I saw where a communications mfg implemented 
and deployed equipment using an FPGA equivalent fo the 4044 PFD using a 
pair of D FFs.  What they failed to realize was that the logic synthesis 
tool decided that since the FFs only clocked in '1's, ( it ignored the 
state caused by the async reset ), and created a couple of wires instead of 
a couple of D FFs.  Needless to say that "PFD" performed suboptimally.

Regards,


Steve.
At 01:17 PM 8/20/2003 -0700, Paul Levin wrote:
>Dear Steve,
>
>There are several different varieties of PFD, each with their own
>idiosyncrasies.
>
>The MC4044 was a charge pump, and as it pumped during the phase error
>period, there was the possibility of metastability and/or dead band.
>To beat this, many designs used a bleeder resistor to draw some charge
>off of the capacitor. Thus, while the system was not locked at exactly
>quadrature, the system was not in the dead band region, either. The closer
>you were to dead band, the less energy you had to filter out to prevent
>phase modulation of the VCO.
>
>Today there are some charge pump PFD designs that follow the phase error
>pulse with a fixed duration pulse of a specific polarity; this accomplishes
>the same goal as the old bleeder resistor trick.
>
>The one I described could have metastability in its frequency detect
>regions, but once it locked, the real PD signals were almost perfectly
>in quadrature in order to have a square wave coming out of the XOR. There
>was no danger of dead band, but there was a lot of energy at the PD
>frequency that needed filtering so as to prevent phase modulation of the
>VCO.
>
>Many PFD designs would divide both the ref and divided VCO by two in
>order to ensure that the two inputs were symmetrical; this was especially
>important for designs whose phase detector portion ended up being XOR.
>This resulted in the apparent expansion of the phase detection range.
>
>You might want to look at the data sheet for Analog Devices' old 200 MHz
>PFD, the AD9901. There you will find the divide by two and no dead band.
>
>Regards,
>
>Paul
>_______________
>
>steve weir wrote:
>
>>Partha,
>>The old Motorola MC4044 is a classic implementation of a PFD and the 
>>documentation includes a state diagram that closely follows Paul's 
>>description of the frequency locking function.  However his description 
>>of the behavior for less than one cycle phase error appears misleading to 
>>me.  An XOR PD has a detection range of +/- pi/2, whereas a PFD has a 
>>range of +/- 2pi where it saturates at either limit as it must in order 
>>to indicate frequency difference.  There are a number of good books on 
>>the subject that go into more detail, including a very accessible title 
>>from Ron Best.
>>BTW, all is not wine and roses with PFD's.  Common implementations are 
>>subject to timing hazards and/or metastability problems.  Sometimes this 
>>is true even for implementations advertised as free of metastability 
>>problems such as an appnote that Transwitch has had out for a few years.
>>In addition, all PFD's that I know of have some amount of dead-band at 
>>zero error, which is usually chosen as zero phase offset.  That dead-band 
>>results in uncontrolled phase wander bounded by the width of the 
>>dead-band.  Two approaches to deal with this problem are:
>>1. Minimize the width of the dead-band, and
>>2. Intentionally offset the loop with a static phase error to lock just 
>>outside the dead-band.
>>2. is commonly implemented by drawing some bias current through a 
>>resistor.  You will find this noted in many of the clock PLL chip app 
>>notes from MOT, ICD, etc.
>>Whether these issues are of concern depends on the application.   The 
>>dead-band is measured in radians of the phase detector frequency, so with 
>>a frequency multiplier application, a "small" dead band can result in 
>>large phase offsets at the VCO output.  If your application is a radio, 
>>this can be a significant issue.
>>If you are contemplating an FPGA implementation in Xilinx, I have a PFD 
>>that may be useful to you as it is unconditionally stable, and typically 
>>limits the dead-band down to a few 10's of ps.
>>Regards,
>>
>>Steve.
>>At 11:45 PM 8/19/2003 -0700, Paul Levin wrote:
>>
>>>Dear Partha,
>>>
>>>As you indicated, with a phase detector all one knows
>>>is the phase error. Whether that is a voltage resulting
>>>from pulse width modulation or a voltage resulting from
>>>charge pumps, that is all you know. In either case, if
>>>the frequencies are way off, you get a sinusoidal varying
>>>voltage whose average voltage is zero (give or take the
>>>offset.) This gives you no information as to which way to
>>>move the VCO. That is why a straight phase detector has
>>>a limited acquisition range; a PLL based on a phase detector
>>>must be able to "catch" the frequency during a fraction
>>>of a beat period.
>>>
>>>On the other hand, a phase-frequency detector gives you
>>>information about which of the two frequencies is higher.
>>>When the two frequencies are way off, the output voltage,
>>>however created, will have a real dc content indicating
>>>which way the VCO should move to get closer. As the two
>>>frequencies get closer together, the PFD reverts to being
>>>a phase detector, so you can phase-lock the loop.
>>>
>>>The simplest way of thinking of a PFD is to imagine a two
>>>bit up-down counter. Every time you get a reference pulse,
>>>the counter moves one way (let's say up), and every time
>>>you get a VCO pulse, the counter moves the other way (call
>>>this down.) This counter also saturates at 00 and 11 so
>>>that if the counter is 00 and you get a VCO pulse, the
>>>counter will remain at 00 or if the counter is 11 and you
>>>get a reference pulse, the counter will remain at 11. The
>>>PFD output is the more significant bit. If you get two
>>>reference pulses in a row, the VCO is too slow and you
>>>want to speed it up. Since the counter now oscillates
>>>between 10 or 11, and the MSB is a solid 1. Thus, the VCO
>>>is driven to a higher frequency. Once the VCO gets high
>>>enough (and actually just a bit too high,) there will be
>>>two VCO pulses in a row, and the counter will settle into
>>>a pattern between 01 and 10. Since the MSB is now oscillating,
>>>you have the equivalent of an XOR output between the two
>>>signals, i.e., a classic phase detector.
>>>
>>>Hope that this helps.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Paul
>>>____________________
>>>
>>>Parthasarathy Sampath wrote:
>>>
>>> > Hi All,
>>> > Whats the difference between Phase detector and
>>> > Phase/Freq Detector?
>>> >
>>> > Why is PFD advantageous to PF?
>>> > - Normally PF has low acquisition range limited by
>>> > usage of Low Pass Filter. In PFD we use charge pump
>>> > instead of LPF. Is that the main reason?
>>> >
>>> > Thanks in Advance,
>>> >
>>> > Regards,
>>> > Partha!
>>> >
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>>>
>>>--
>>>Paul Levin
>>>Senior Principal Engineer
>>>Xyratex Storage Systems
>>>
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>>
>
>--
>Paul Levin
>Senior Principal Engineer
>Xyratex Storage Systems
>


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