An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh Environments
Among all the functions that electronics currently perform, clock synthesis has a backbone role. Charge pump phase-locked loops (CP-PLL) are widely used to accomplish clock synthesis thanks to their versatility. One of the most critical parts of CP-PLLs is the charge pump, which greatly influences t...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2024-02-01
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| Series: | Electronics |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/13/4/744 |
| _version_ | 1797298443214913536 |
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| author | Marco Mestice Gabriele Ciarpi Daniele Rossi Sergio Saponara |
| author_facet | Marco Mestice Gabriele Ciarpi Daniele Rossi Sergio Saponara |
| author_sort | Marco Mestice |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Among all the functions that electronics currently perform, clock synthesis has a backbone role. Charge pump phase-locked loops (CP-PLL) are widely used to accomplish clock synthesis thanks to their versatility. One of the most critical parts of CP-PLLs is the charge pump, which greatly influences the system’s performance. Even though several high-performance charge pumps have been proposed in the past, with the quick spread of electronics in all the engineering fields, the design of such electronic devices has encountered several additional challenges dictated by external environmental conditions. Examples of these engineering sectors are space, aerospace, industrial, and automotive applications, where the charge pump has to face high environmental temperatures and radiation effects. As a consequence, its design and experimental characterization have to be performed to ensure reliability when operating in harsh conditions. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no works in the literature have ever presented a complete charge pump design and characterization in such harsh environments. Therefore, to fill this gap, this paper presents a charge pump for PLL applications specifically designed to reach operating temperatures up to 200 °C and total ionizing dose levels up to 100 Mrad. All design choices have been experimentally verified and are discussed throughout the paper in detail. With the proposed design, we obtained an output current variation of less than 8% at 200 °C and less than 2.5% at 100 Mrad. As opposed to the CPs that can be found in the literature, these results were measured on silicon. The performed measurements confirm that the current variation at 200 °C is better than that of the state-of-the-art CPs operating at lower temperatures, which, moreover, were only simulated. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T22:34:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d65c0bbe3b944bee9606f785b993dee9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2079-9292 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T22:34:56Z |
| publishDate | 2024-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Electronics |
| spelling | doaj.art-d65c0bbe3b944bee9606f785b993dee92024-02-23T15:14:49ZengMDPI AGElectronics2079-92922024-02-0113474410.3390/electronics13040744An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh EnvironmentsMarco Mestice0Gabriele Ciarpi1Daniele Rossi2Sergio Saponara3Department of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, ItalyDepartment of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, ItalyDepartment of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, ItalyDepartment of Information Engineering, University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, ItalyAmong all the functions that electronics currently perform, clock synthesis has a backbone role. Charge pump phase-locked loops (CP-PLL) are widely used to accomplish clock synthesis thanks to their versatility. One of the most critical parts of CP-PLLs is the charge pump, which greatly influences the system’s performance. Even though several high-performance charge pumps have been proposed in the past, with the quick spread of electronics in all the engineering fields, the design of such electronic devices has encountered several additional challenges dictated by external environmental conditions. Examples of these engineering sectors are space, aerospace, industrial, and automotive applications, where the charge pump has to face high environmental temperatures and radiation effects. As a consequence, its design and experimental characterization have to be performed to ensure reliability when operating in harsh conditions. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no works in the literature have ever presented a complete charge pump design and characterization in such harsh environments. Therefore, to fill this gap, this paper presents a charge pump for PLL applications specifically designed to reach operating temperatures up to 200 °C and total ionizing dose levels up to 100 Mrad. All design choices have been experimentally verified and are discussed throughout the paper in detail. With the proposed design, we obtained an output current variation of less than 8% at 200 °C and less than 2.5% at 100 Mrad. As opposed to the CPs that can be found in the literature, these results were measured on silicon. The performed measurements confirm that the current variation at 200 °C is better than that of the state-of-the-art CPs operating at lower temperatures, which, moreover, were only simulated.https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/13/4/744charge pumpphase-frequency detectortotal ionizing dosehigh-temperature electronicsharsh environmentsreliable electronics |
| spellingShingle | Marco Mestice Gabriele Ciarpi Daniele Rossi Sergio Saponara An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh Environments Electronics charge pump phase-frequency detector total ionizing dose high-temperature electronics harsh environments reliable electronics |
| title | An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh Environments |
| title_full | An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh Environments |
| title_fullStr | An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh Environments |
| title_full_unstemmed | An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh Environments |
| title_short | An Integrated Charge Pump for Phase-Locked Loop Applications in Harsh Environments |
| title_sort | integrated charge pump for phase locked loop applications in harsh environments |
| topic | charge pump phase-frequency detector total ionizing dose high-temperature electronics harsh environments reliable electronics |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/13/4/744 |
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