50 Applications of Cmos Inverter
50 Applications of Cmos Inverter
Behzad Razavi
A
As explained in the first part of
this article [1], this series deals
with interesting and useful appli-
cations of the CMOS inverter, a
included. Unless otherwise stated,
L = 30 nm for all transistors.
Buffer VDD
VDD
2
X ID
0.5 µm 1 µm
(W (N = (W ( P =
L 30 nm L 30 nm
(a) (b)
0
0.8
Phase Noise(dBc/Hz)
–20
Voltage (V)
0.6 –40
–60
0.4
–80
0.2 –100
FIGURE 1: (a) A simple ring oscillator, (b) condition under which ID and SN (f ) are measured, (c) oscillation waveform at X, and (d) PN profile.
–20
Phase Noise(dBc/Hz)
–40
–60
Core Devices:
–80
1 µm 2 µm
( W (N = ( W (P =
L 100 nm L 100 nm –100
(a)
–120
104 105 106 107 108
Offset Frequency (Hz)
(b)
FIGURE 3: (a) A ring oscillator with larger transistors and (b) its PN profile.
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a phase difference of 180°. If exces- The Quadrature Ring Oscillator of our reference oscillator. With
sively strong, however, these two We can envision placing four P = 850 nA # 0.95 V = 810 nW, we
inverters can create latch-up by vir- inverters in a loop so as to gener- recognize that, ideally, the PN of
tue of positive feedback. For this rea- ate quadrature phases (see Fig- the reference oscillator should
son, we typically scale Inv1 and Inv2 ure 5(a)]. This circuit, however, drop by 10 log (810 nW/340 nW) +
down by a factor of four with respect prefers to latch up and settle into 10 log (15.7 GHz/9.8 GHz) 2 = 7.7 dB.
to the main inverters. “degenerate” conditions A = B = 0 That is, quadrature operation costs
Figure 4(b) plots the waveforms and X = Y = VDD (or the other way about 2.7 dB in performance.
at X and Y, revealing an oscillation around). We know from the pre-
frequency of 14.1 GHz, slightly less vious section that cross-coupled The Current-Controlled Oscillator
than that of the single-ended coun- inverters, e.g., Inv1 and Inv2 in Fig- The high supply sensitivity of the
terpart shown in Figure 3(a). This ure 4(a), pose complementary val- ring oscillators studied in the previ-
occurs due to the additional capaci- ues at their two terminals and can ous sections demands on-chip volt-
tances introduced by the cross- therefore avoid the degenerate con- age regulators having low output
coupled inverters. We also have ditions. As shown in Figure 5(b), we noise. An alternative that alleviates
P = 690 nA # 0.95 V . 660 nW. Pre- attach such pairs between A and this issue supplies the ring by a
sented in Figure 4(c), the PN profile sug- B and between X and Y [4]. Plotted current source [Figure 6(a)], assum-
gests a value of –66 dBc/Hz at a 1-MHz in Figure 5(c) are the quadrature ing that I1 has little dependence on
offset, about 4 dB lower than that in waveforms exhibiting a frequency VDD [5]. Capacitor C1 further sup-
Figure 3(b). This is to be expected of 9.8 GHz. From Figure 5(d), we presses the supply noise. Since the
because 10 log (660 nW/340 nW) + measure a PN of –67 dBc/Hz at a oscillation frequency depends on VX
10 log (15.7GHz/14.1 GHz) 2 = 3.7 dB. 1-MHz offset, 5 dB lower than that and since VX can be adjusted by I1,
0.8
Voltage (V)
0.6
X 0.4
0.2
Inv1 Inv2
0
0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7
Y Time (ns)
(b)
Main Inverters:
0
1 µm 2 µm
( W (N = ( W (P =
L 100 nm L 100 nm –20
Cross−Coupled Inverters:
Phase Noise(dBc/Hz)
–100
–120
–140
104 105 106 107 108
Offset Frequency (Hz)
(c)
FIGURE 4: (a) A differential ring, (b) the X and Y waveforms, and (c) the PN profile.
A B A B
Y Y
Inv4 Inv3 Inv4 Inv3
1 µm 2 µm
( W (N = W
( (P =
L 100 nm L 100 nm
(a) (b)
0.8 –20
Phase Noise(dBc/Hz)
–40
Voltage (V)
0.6
–60
0.4 –80
0.2 –100
–120
0
0.8 0.85 0.9 104 105 106 107 108
Time (ns) Offset Frequency (Hz)
(c) (d)
FIGURE 5: (a) A four-stage ring, (b) the addition of cross-coupled inverters, (c) the ring’s waveforms, and (d) the PN profile.
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or disabled by a thermometer code. varies from three to nine. Of course, The Crystal Oscillator
With only the main ring enabled, for smaller steps, a large number of A single inverter along with two capac-
the circuit oscillates at its lowest inverters are necessary. itors can provide a negative resistance
frequency because of the parasitic Recall from our analysis of the and hence the possibility of oscillation
capacitances introduced by the basic ring oscillator that simply add- if it is connected to a resonator. Illus-
disabled inverters. If we now acti- ing capacitances to the internal nodes trated in Figure 9(a), such a structure
vate, e.g., Inv4, it provides a greater does not reduce the PN as much as displays the following impedance:
drive strength at node Y while neg- increasing the transistor dimensions
g mN + g mP
ligibly raising the total capacitance does. We therefore predict that the ZX = 1 + 1 + (2)
C1 s C2 s C1 C2 s2
at X. The oscillation frequency thus DCO of Figure 8(a) exhibits a less
increases. favorable PN-power tradeoff at its where channel-length modulation is
Employing our reference oscil- lowest oscillation frequency. On the neglected and gmN and gmP denote the
lator of Figure 3(a) in this environ- other hand, the circuit reduces to m transconductances of the inverter’s
ment with a total of nine inverters, rings in parallel at its maximum fre- NMOS and PMOS transistors, respec-
we arrive at the tuning characteris- quency, reducing the PN by a factor tively. For s = j~, the third term
tic presented in Figure 8(b). The fre- of m with respect to that of the ref- emerges as - (g mN + g mP ) / (C 1 C 2 ~ 2),
quency rises from 4.2 to 11.6 GHz erence oscillator while consuming m signifying a frequency-dependent neg-
as the number of active inverters times the power. ative resistance. We now construct the
–20
VDD
Phase Noise(dBc/Hz)
10 µm
( W ( a,b= Mb Ma –40
L 100 nm C1
200 µA –60
X
A
–80
–100
Core Devices:
1 µm 2 µm –120
( W (N = ( W (P = 104 105 106 107 108
L 100 nm L 100 nm Offset Frequency (Hz)
(a) (b)
FIGURE 7: (a) A CCO using a current mirror and (b) its PN.
Inv4
9
m Rows
8
(a) 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Number of Active Inverters
(b)
VB –156 Vout
1
VA –158 VB
Phase Noise(dBc/Hz)
0.8
–160
Voltage (V)
0.6 –162
0.4 –164
0.2 –166
–168
0
–170
0 100 200 300 400 500 104 105 106 107
Time (us) Offset Frequency (Hz)
(a) (b)
FIGURE 10: The crystal oscillator’s (a) waveforms and (b) PN profile.
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reason, we select the strength of Ma at X and Y, and Figure 12(b) shows the idea is to add Inv4 so that the
and Mb only to bring VX or VY down to the recovered clock. The peak-to- waveform at X finds a faster path to
a few hundred millivolts. peak jitter is about 200 fs. Y. The divider can thus run at higher
Another jitter mechanism occurs frequencies. However, it now faces
if the two inputs of the NAND gate The Feedforward Frequency Divider a lower bound because Inv4 over-
in Figure 11(b) experience differ- Recall from the first part of this arti- whelms the main path from X to Y
ent delays. To resolve this issue, we cle series [1] that a dynamic latch can at low clock rates. These bounds are
employ two such gates with their be realized as a transmission gate studied in [9].
inputs swapped in Figure 11(d). followed by an inverter. We have Figure 13(b) plots the waveform at
Beginning with our reference seen in [1] that a ' 2 circuit using Y for an input frequency of 52 GHz,
oscillator of Figure 3(a), we imple- this latch operates up to an input indicating correct operation. As
ment the CDR for operation at 15 GHz. frequency of 45 GHz. This bound depicted in Figure 13(c), the circuit
We have (W/L) a, b = 1.5 nm/30 nm. can be raised by means of “feedfor- operates properly from 23 to 54 GHz.
Figure 12(a) presents the waveforms ward.” Illustrated in Figure 13(a) [9],
The Frequency Divider With
Quadrature Outputs
Wireless and wireline applications
E X often require in-phase (I) and quadra-
X ture (Q) components of periodic wave-
Vout Din Ma forms. To generate these phases by a
Din Ma Vout
frequency divider, we return to the
Din Y quadrature oscillator of Figure 5(b)
and surmise that it can act as a ' 2 cir-
Vout Din Mb cuit if Inv1-Inv4 are controlled by the
input clock. Shown in Figure 14(a), the
Din
t result can be viewed as an injection-
(a)
Vout locked oscillator or as a loop employ-
ing “clocked CMOS” (C2MOS) latches.
VDD t The device dimensions in this
(b)
E divider must be chosen carefully.
X A
B The clocked transistors are twice as
Vout wide as the devices that they enable
Din Ma A
B so as to maintain reasonable pull-
(c) (d) down and pull-up strengths for the
latches. Moreover, the cross-coupled
FIGURE 11: (a) A ring enabled and disabled by random data, (b) a burst-mode CDR circuit, inverters are twice as weak as the
(c) an illustration of oscillator activation, and (d) two crisscrossed NAND gates for improving main inverters to avoid latch-up.
propagation symmetry. With these dimensions, the circuit
1 1
VY
VX
0.8 0.8
0.6
Voltage (V)
Voltage (V)
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2
0.2
FIGURE 12: The CDR circuit’s (a) internal waveforms and (b) output clock.
CK CK
( W ( N = 0.5 µm
L 30 nm Inv4
1 µm Feedforward
( W (P =
L 30 nm
(a)
0.8 25
0.6
20
0.4
15
0.2
FIGURE 13: (a) A divide-by-two circuit with feedforward, (b) the waveform at Y, and (c) its frequency characteristic.
0.8
Voltage (V)
0.5 µm
( W (N =
L 30 nm 0.4
1 µm
CK CK ( W (P =
L 30 nm 0.2
Clocked Devices:
1 µm 0.78 0.79 0.8 0.81 0.82 0.83
( W (N = Time (ns)
L 30 nm
(b)
2 µm
CK CK ( W (P =
L 30 nm
30
Cross−Coupled
Output Frequency (GHz)
Inverters:
25
0.25 µm
CK CK ( W (N =
L 30 nm
20
0.5 µm
( W (P =
L 30 nm 15
(a)
10
0 20 40 60
Input Frequency (GHz)
(c)
FIGURE 14: (a) A divide-by-two circuit providing quadrature outputs, (b) its output waveforms, and (c) its frequency characteristic.
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generates the I and Q outputs plot- NMOS device in Inv1 and the PMOS interpolation network. Shown in
ted in Figure 14(b) for an input device in Inv2 are heavily on, fight- Figure 16(a) is an example for inter-
frequency of 60 GHz. The character- ing each other. With equal strengths, polation by a factor of 16 at 28 GHz
istic of Figure 14(c) suggests correct therefore, these two transistors pro- [10]. We use a virtual ground, node
operation up to 62 GHz. duce Vout = (VI + VQ ) /2. Of course, X, for the summation of the currents
the NMOS/PMOS strength ratio var- produced by the inverters and the
The Phase Interpolator ies with process corners. resistors. The multiplexers receive a
In some applications, we generate Phase interpolation requires suffi- thermometer code that determines
the I and Q phases of a clock and ciently slow transitions for VI and VQ how many inverters sense VI and how
then interpolate between them so so that they avoid any “nonoverlap” many sense VQ. For example, a code
as to create finer phase spacings. time. As illustrated in Figure 15(b), if with 15 ones and one zero trans-
Inverters can serve this purpose at VI and VQ respectively reside at high lates to Vout ? 15VI + VQ and hence
fairly high speeds. and low levels at the same time, a a rotation of tan -1 (1/15) = 3.8° [Fig-
Consider the arrangement shown “kink” appears in the output, caus- ure 16(b)]. Plotted in Figure 16(c) are
in Figure 15(a), where quadra- ing considerable jitter. the interpolated waveforms, display-
ture inputs, VI and VQ , ideally yield To lessen the effect of process ing some nonlinearity; the phase
Vout = (VI + VQ ) /2. At t = t 12, the corners, we can add resistors to the spacing varies from 385 to 690 fs.
This issue can be alleviated through
the use of predistortion [10].
Inv1 Vout Vout
VI VI VI References
VDD VQ VDD VQ [1] B. Razavi, “Fifty applications of the CMOS
Vout 2 2 inverter—Part 1,” IEEE Solid-State Circuits
VQ Mag., vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 7–14, Summer
t1 t2 t1 t2 t 2024, doi: 10.1109/MSSC.2024.3419528.
t
t 12 [2] B. Casper et al., “A 20Gb/s forwarded
Inv2 clock transceiver in 90nm CMOS B.,” in
(a) (b) Proc. IEEE Int. Solid State Circuits Conf.
– Dig. Tech. Papers, San Francisco, CA,
USA, Feb. 2006, pp. 87–88. doi: 10.1109/
FIGURE 15: (a) Two inverters interpolating between quadrature inputs and (b) the kink ISSCC.2006.1696056.
problem. [3] A. Homayoun and B. Razavi, “Relation
between delay line phase noise and ring
oscillator phase noise,” IEEE J. Solid-State
Circuits, vol. 49, no. 2, pp. 384–391, Feb.
2014, doi: 10.1109/JSSC.2013.2289893.
VI R1 [4] L. Sun and A. Kwasniewski, “A 1.25-GHz
MUX
lit/pdf/swra945
600 [8] M. Banu and A. Dunlop, “A 660 Mb/s CMOS
clock recovery circuit with instantaneous
locking for NRZ data and burst-mode
400 transmission,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Solid State
Circuits Conf. – Dig. Tech. Papers, San
Francisco, CA, USA, Feb. 1993, pp. 102–
200 103, doi: 10.1109/ISSCC.1993.280066.
[9] O. Memioglu, Y. Zhao and B. Razavi, “A
300-GHz 52-mW CMOS receiver with on-
66 68 70 72 74 76 78 chip LO generation,” IEEE J. Solid-State Cir-
cuits, vol. 58, no. 8, pp. 2141–2156, Aug.
Time (ps) 2023, doi: 10.1109/JSSC.2023.3257820.
(c) [10] B. Razavi, “The design of a phase interpo-
lator,” IEEE Solid-State Circuits Mag., vol.
15, no. 4, pp. 6–10, Fall 2023, doi: 10.1109/
FIGURE 16: (a) A 16× phase interpolator, (b) its phasor diagram, and (c) its interpolated MSSC.2023.3315653.
waveforms.