A Monolithic Digital Clock-Generator for On-Chip Clocking of Custom DSP's

This paper shows a robust and easily implemented clock generator for custom designs. It is a fully digital design suitable for both high-speed clocking and low-voltage applications. This clocking method is digital, and it avoids analog methods like phase locked loops or delay line loops. Instead, the clock generator is based on a ring counter which stops a ring oscillator after the correct number of cycles. Both a 385 MHz clock and a 15 MHz custom DSP application using the on-chip clocking strategy are described. The prototypes have been fabricated in a 0.8 μm standard CMOS process. The major advantages with this clocking method are robustness, small size, low-power consumption, and that it can operate at a very low supply voltage