DESIGN OF A PHASE LOCKED LOOP BASED CLOCKING CIRCUIT

FOR HIGH SPEED SERIAL LINK APPLICATIONS

BY
RISHI RATAN

THESIS
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014

Urbana, Illinois
Adviser:
Professor Jose Schutt-Aine

ABSTRACT

Technology scaling and unprecedented growth in demand for ubiquitous, fast,

robust computing have been the driving forces leading the innovations in
high-speed interfaces. With the rise of heavy duty data centers to handheld
mobile devices, the desire for faster, low-power integrated inter-IC communication protocols is at an all-time high and has led the roadmap of the
semiconductor industry, making it one of the fastest growing yet fiercely
competitive industries. With the growing needs for ultra-low power yet
multi-Gbps signaling in both wired as well as wireline applications, integrated systems on chip (SoCs) have become mainstream critical components
in modern computing systems. The ability to process and access big-data
is the fundamental demand in modern society where every second saved in
prompt communication as well as computation of information is critical. In
order to meet these needs of fast, robust signaling over the same old lossy
channels, the clock-frequencies need to scale accordingly and clever I/O links
need to be developed. The most crucial component of any high-speed I/O
link is the clocking circuitry: clock generator at the transmit (TX) end and
clock-recovery unit on the receive (RX) end.
This thesis provides an in-depth tutorial on circuit design, analysis and
simulation of on-chip PLL based clocking generator circuits for high-speed
serial link applications. An overview of high-speed links, along with the basic
building blocks that make up a serial link, is presented. The fundamentals
of PLLs are introduced and a complete guide to analysis and simulation of
a charge-pump phase-locked loop based clocking circuit at both behavioral
as well as transistor levels is presented for use as a synthesizer in a serial
link. Finally, a survey of potential future research areas to explore for both
PLLs in high-speed links as well as the complete serial link is provided with
an emphasis on signal integrity applications for future students pursuing
graduate studies in the fields of Signal Integrity and Mixed-Signal IC Design.
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To my family and friends, for their love and support.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As I approach the finishing stages of my graduate career, looking back there

are countless individuals who have helped make this journey special and
memorable. Graduate school is full of numerous uncertainties, various roadblocks in terms of design and implementation of ideas; thus it is a journey
that though embarked on by one individual, really is a culmination of the
efforts of many people who have helped behind the scenes along the way. At
the end of it all, it is this support system that I am deeply indebted to for
helping each step of the way, motivating me in the most difficult of times
where there were only questions and no answers.
First and foremost, I want to thank my wonderful advisor Professor Jose
Schutt-Aine for being my mentor, always motivating me to push myself to
the next level and being there for me like family. Dr. Schutt-Aine was one of
the first to see potential in me back when I was just a sophomore and had no
direction in what I wanted to pursue in my career. He introduced me to the
field of circuits and sparked an interest in engineering. He has always been
extremely patient throughout the countless occasions I have visited his office
hours. Being a mentor and father-figure for me throughout my educational
career at UIUC, Prof. Schutt-Aine has been the biggest contributor to my
successes throughout my collegiate career and will forever be a role-model
who I look up to as I start my professional career in industry.
Secondly, I would like to convey my heartfelt thank you to Professor Pavan
Kumar Hanumolu for guiding me throughout this thesis as a mentor. Prof.
Hanumolu stood by me with patience throughout the course of this thesis
work, and took time off from his busy schedule in providing me formal lectures
on PLLs one-on-one in his office at a time when it was very hectic for him
given that he had just moved to UIUC. Without Dr. Hanumolus constant
guidance and feedback this thesis would never have been completed.
Thirdly, I would like to sincerely thank my wonderful colleagues, mentors
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and friends in graduate school: Da Wei, Xu Chen, Tom Comberiate, Romesh

Nandwana, Mrunmay Talegaonkar, Yubo Liu, Ahmed Elkholy, Saurabh Saxena, Tejasvi Anand, Guanghua Shu, Woo-Seok Choi, Drew Newell, Xinying
Wang, Jerry Yang and Maryam Hajimiri for always being patient to answer
all my questions, solving arcane problems during the simulation and design
process. These fine graduate students have stood by me since day one, provided constructive criticism on my work, painstakingly critiqued every figure
and most importantly constantly pushed me towards striving for nothing
short of excellence.
Furthermore, I am extremely grateful to Professor Steven Franke, Professor Christopher Schmitz, Professor Milton Feng, Professor Elyse Rosenbaum,
Professor Naresh Shanbhag, Professor Venugopal Veeravalli and Dr. Chandrashekhar Radhakrishnan for supporting me throughout my educational career at UIUC and mentoring me every step of the way. Even when the chips
were down, they always believed in me and helped me gain an opportunity
to pursue my graduate studies.
I thank my family for always being by my side, motivating me to move
forward whenever I was faced with roadblocks. Lastly, I am eternally grateful
to my friends Ian Wetherbee, Rohan Bambery, Eric Iverson, Pourya Assem,
Sai Zhang, Min-Sun Keel, Anish Chivukula, Eclair Hanjing Gao, Dennis
Yuan, Jerry Sun, Nishant Nookala and Eric Kim for always standing by
me throughout my ECE career at UIUC. I am positive I have missed a few
people from the above list but I truly am very thankful to all those who I
have interacted with throughout my time at UIUC. Additionally, I am very
grateful for getting an opportunity to work with wonderful undergraduates
Rushabh Mehta, Ishita Bisht, Brady Salz, Ankit Jain, Haodong Guo, and
Pradyut Paul who have worked very diligently in getting the High SpeedSerDes Design project off the ground from scratch.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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CHAPTER 2 HIGH SPEED SERIAL LINKS OVERVIEW

2.1 Simple Link Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 Serial vs. Parallel Data Transmission . . . . . . . .
2.3 SerDes Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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CHAPTER 3 PLL THEORY AND BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . 17

3.1 PLL Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Basic PLL Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
CHAPTER 4 PLLs IN CLOCKING CIRCUITS
4.1 Charge-Pump (CP) PLLs Overview . . .
4.2 CPLL Linear Model and Analysis . . . .
4.3 CPLL Noise-Analysis . . . . . . . . . . .

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CHAPTER 5 PLL BASED CLOCK GENERATOR

5.1 PFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 CPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3 LF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.4 VCOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5 Divider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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CHAPTER 6 BEHAVIORAL LEVEL SIMULATION . .

6.1 Why Behavioral Modeling? . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2 Why Verilog-AMS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.3 Basic Verilog-A/AMS Syntax . . . . . . . . . . .
6.4 PLL Simulation in AMS Using Cadence Virtuoso

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CHAPTER 7 TRANSISTOR LEVEL SIMULATION . . .

7.1 What is SPICE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.2 SPICE vs. Spectre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.3 Transient, PSS and PNoise Simulation Overview . .
7.4 PLL Simulation in Spectre Using Cadence Virtuoso

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CHAPTER 8 DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
8.1 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
8.2 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
APPENDIX A CADENCE VIRTUOSO INSTALLATION GUIDE
A.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A.2 Environment Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A.3 Common Troubleshooting Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Motivation
Over the last 50 years, advances in Semiconductor Fabrication Technology
(SFT) coupled with innovations in Integrated Circuit (IC) technology scaling have fueled an unparalleled growth in computing. This aggressive scaling
has revolutionized every aspect of modern society and triggered an insatiable
demand for faster data rates and higher processing power resulting in clock
frequencies and corresponding data rates approaching multi-GHz and multiGbps ranges in everyday computing devices like personal computers, mobile
devices, entertainment consoles and other such devices. Access to information promptly and efficiently in terms of power and portability/ease of use
is the major driver pushing the limits of IC technology. Thus, the need
for robust, high-speed, low-power and highly integrable compact systemson-chip (SOCs) is paramount for inter-IC communication interfaces such as
network switches, processor/memory interfaces across backplane channels.
In order to meet this growing demand for wideband systems, the Input/Output (I/O) links need to scale proportionally with the increased data-rate
scaling; however in reality the off-chip I/O bandwidth (BW) has not scaled
appropriately and has become a major bottleneck in the overall system performance. Furthermore, along with the off-chip I/O BW limitations, the
channel as well as package/connector interfaces have not scaled with SFT
making the design of high-speed I/O links extremely challenging due to the
increased transmission line loss, crosstalk, and signal distortion resulting in
intersymbol interference. As the demand for high data-rate interfaces has
skyrocketed, the clock-frequencies needed to realize such systems have correspondingly reached the multi-GHz range necessitating the use of phase-locked
loops (PLLs) for on-chip clock synthesis.

Figure 1.1: IO Link Signaling Data-Rate Trends

Figure 1.1 shows the trends in data-rate scaling of I/O high-speed signaling links as forecasted by the International Solid State Circuits Conference
(ISSCC) 2011 annual semiconductor roadmapping report [5]. The key takeaway from this graph is that the data-rates in inter-IC communication links
are scaling by a factor of 2X every 4 calendar years while IO channel BW
remains the same. The I/O BW scaling problem aside, the ability to design
robust, low-jitter on-chip clock synthesizer circuits is in itself an extremely
challenging task. Though research in the field of integrated high-frequency
clocking circuits has been going on for the past two-decades and lots of innovative designs have come into existence, one common facet missing from
the whole paradigm is complete documentation on process of simulation using the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools [6]. Most of the literary
works in this area primarily focus on novel system level designs for PLL based
clock synthesizers and some go into transistor-level details of the sub-blocks;
however very rarely do any of the prominent works describe the actual simulation process. As the clock-frequencies scale and demand for robustness
in the on-chip synthesizers increases, circuit designers also need to be aware
of potential Signal-Integrity (SI) problems associated with their intricate designs. Since the channel BW is essentially the same at high-frequencies of
operation the PCB traces act as transmission-lines (TLs) leading to severe
degradation in signal quality due to reflections, ringing and cross-talk effects. Thus, every integrated circuit designer will invariably face SI problems
in their design which until recently was not a concern as the frequencies
were low enough that digital design did not require a formal understand2

ing of signal integrity during the development as well as verification process.

Therefore, the motivation for this thesis is to bridge the gap between circuit design and simulation for signal-integrity engineers who need the basic
expertise in mixed-signal design process to be able to provide the required
assistance to IC designers on designing high-speed SI aware systems.

1.2 Outline
This thesis is organized to serve as a training manual for students pursuing mixed-signal integrated circuit design as their field of study in graduate
school. The goal is for this thesis to be their go-to guide to grasp a high-level
understanding of high-speed links and learn the simulation setup/procedure
to validate PLL based clocking circuits using the popular EDA tool Cadence
Virtuoso.
1. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the research problem describing
the need for high-speed serial links and their future trends.
2. Chapter 2 provides an overview of high-speed links with an emphasis on
describing each of the building blocks, figures of merit to characterize
these links and lay the motivation for the industry-wide shift from
parallel to serial-link design for low power, cost-effective robust I/O
link design.
3. Chapter 3 describes the fundamentals of Phase-Locked Loops (PLLs)
and provides a brief overview of their ubiquitous use in modern day
wireline/wireless systems.
4. Chapter 4 covers a special class of PLLs, Charge-Pump PLLs, and
provides a linear model for small-signal as well as noise-analysis of
these PLLs.
5. Chapter 5 presents the transistor-level design of a Charge-Pump based
Integer-N clock generator circuit operating at an output frequency of
1.6GHz.

6. Chapter 6 describes the procedure for behavioral modeling and simulation using Verilog-AMS for the clock-generator circuit described in
Chapter 5.
7. Chapter 7 describes the procedure for transistor-level simulation for
the clock-generator circuit described in Chapter 5.
8. Chapter 8 concludes the thesis with a discussion of the take-aways from
the clocking circuit designed earlier and provides a brief anecdote on
the signal integrity focus areas in high-speed link design and lists design
improvements on the basic Integer-N analog clock generating circuit to
accommodate industry trends within the field.
9. Lastly, the Appendix provides a step-by-step guide for installing and
configuring the Cadence Virtuoso environment.

CHAPTER 2
HIGH SPEED SERIAL LINKS OVERVIEW

2.1 Simple Link Design

Figure 2.1: Typical High-Speed Link Block Diagram

Generalized model of a High-Speed Serial Link (HSSL), as shown in Figure 2.1 [1], consists of a serializer and transmitter (TX) driven by a PLL
clock synthesizer, a channel and a receiver (RX) and Deserializer driven by
a Clock-Data Recovery (CDR) unit. The serializer accepts the incoming
parallel data-stream and converts it into a serial data-stream which is then
sent to the transmitter. The TX generates a train of pulses depending on
the data symbols to be transmitted across the channel and the pulse-width
which is determined by the timing instant of the transmit clock at both begin/end/edges. The receiver basically comprises a sampler and a decision
5

circuit whose purpose is to sample the received data-bit stream from the
channel and recover, both the transmitted data as well as the clock. Once
the receiver recovers the transmitted serial bit-stream it is sent to the Deserializer block whose job as the name suggests is to convert the received serial
data back to its original parallel form for future interfaces.

Figure 2.2: Typical Backplane Channel Interface

As discussed in the previous chapter, though the desired data-rates have
scaled along with technology scaling, the off-chip channel I/O BW has remained the same. The channel is the electrical path between the TX and RX
blocks and in inter-IC communication systems typically comprises printed
circuit-board (PCB) traces, vias, connectors and other such I/O interface
components. Generally speaking, in high-speed I/O interfaces the channel
is typically a backplane which essentially connects two PCBs together and
typically looks like the interface shown in Figure 2.2 [1]. The channel is
something that the designer has no control over and is thus just a known
unknown to the link designer. It is known in the sense that the channel
impulse-response is known via measurement of S-parameters of the interface
using a Vector-Network-Analyzer (VNA) or via computational electromagnetic modeling software such as Ansys HFSS. The manner in which channel
degrades the transmitted signal stream is the unknown aspect and the designers aim is to design a mechanism for counteracting this degradation.
Thus, the whole challenge in high-speed link design is that we need to design a high signal-fidelity communication system that is fast, robust to losses
incurred in the channel and on top of all this it needs to be low-power and
must occupy the least possible area. The challenge in meeting all of the
aforementioned requirements is that at high-speeds the channel suffers from
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various kinds of microwave losses due to impedance discontinuities between

connectors, substrate loss, cross-talk effects, reflections and ringing, all which
are difficult to predict and model [1].
Figure 2.3 [2] shows an example of the I/O link interface for a 10Gbps serial
link across a backplane channel. Notice that a clean signal when transmitted across a backplane channel incurs tremendous amounts of loss from the
channel at an operating speed of 10Gbps making the signal at the receiver
virtually indistinguishable from noise and thus virtually garbage. In order
to limit the degradation of signal quality during transmission and reception,
the goal of mixed-signal designers is to design fast high-frequency clocks with
minimum timing skew at the TX end and minimal sampling errors at the RX
end.

Figure 2.3: 10Gbps Backplane Serial Link Interface

2.2 Serial vs. Parallel Data Transmission

Historically, parallel links have been widely used in I/O systems that are
connected to the CPU in computers via interfaces like PCI, PCI-X buses.
However, as the data-rates have scaled into multi-gigabit ranges, the parallel
link performance has not scaled accordingly with high signal fidelity. The
tolerance level in timing skew between parallel signaling links has reached
the practical limit achievable using traditional printed-circuit-boards (PCBs)
that typically use FR-4 substrates. Additionally, as the supply voltage levels in modern CMOS process technologies have scaled down tremendously,
the legacy parallel bus voltage levels have not scaled proportionally, making
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them incompatible with modern processes [6]. Thus, in order to mitigate this
performance limitation and supply voltage scaling problems posed by conventional parallel-link design the industry has shifted to electrical point-to-point
serial link interfaces.
Serial links occupy small area on chip and require very few I/O pins as
compared to case of parallel links because the number of pins is not directly
proportional to the number of data input/output signals. In serial communication links clock-skew is not a problem at the receiver since TX clock is
typically not forwarded to the RX. In parallel links, on the other hand clockskew is the major source of signal degradation at the RX side since the TX
clock and data are transmitted separately. Furthermore, cross-talk effects are
minimized in serial links due to the absence of multiple conducting channels
in parallel that each have varying signals transmitted, whereas in parallel
links this is a major problem due to the presence of capacitive/inductive
coupling between multiple conducting parallel interconnect channels.
In the consumer electronics industry, serial links have found widespread acceptance in the form of USB (Universal Serial Bus) that connects peripheral
electronic systems to computer, and SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) which connects the computer motherboard with mass storage devices (e.g. hard disk) and PCI-Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect)
that is used to connect cards (sound, video or other) to the motherboard.
Therefore serial communication has become the solution to higher and more
efficient data transmission in order to meet the demands and trends of the
higher capacity of communication technology [7].

2.3 SerDes Building Blocks

2.3.1 Serializer
The serializer circuit, as the name suggests, converts the input parallel-bus
data into a serial bit-stream form. It is a completely digital block and it precedes the TX driver circuit. At a fundamental level, a serializer is essentially
a Multiplexer circuit whose driving clock for the serialization process is the
TX CLK signal generated by the TX PLL.

2.3.2 Driver Amplifier

Driver amplifiers are found both at the TX as well as RX ends. The DA
(Driver Amplifier) is used to amplify the input serial bit-stream before it is
sent to the receiver through the channel. Another important task accomplished by the DA is that it provides impedance terminations that terminate
the channel input/output with 50 impedance.

2.3.3 Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) Clock Generator

IN

W&

W

/W

sK
s
dZ>
>&

REF
DIV

OUT

Figure 2.4: Typical PLL Based Clock-Generator Block Diagram

A PLL is a negative feedback system whose sole purpose is to use a reference
input clock of frequency fREF and generate a local clock on-chip at a desired
frequency, fOU T , such that the output clock is matched in phase to the input
clock and fOU T = fREF , where is a multiplying factor. PLLs are used in
every modern day high-speed system whether it be wired or wireless because
generating a high spectral purity clock at microwave frequencies/data-rates
is practically not feasible yet. Piezo-electric crystals are used exclusively
as the reference clocks for almost every on-chip interface system because
they have the highest-spectral purity and can output truly periodic, jitterfree clock signals typically up to 200MHz. Due to the insatiable demand
for robust, high-speed signaling, a mere crystal oscillator is not enough to
meet the necessary requirements, so a PLL is essential. The most important
task of a PLL is therefore to produce clock signals with minimal timing
noise, i.e. the lowest possible jitter (in time domain) and phase-noise (in
frequency-domain). At a block-level, a typical PLL clock-generator circuit (as
shown in Figure 2.4) used to generate the high-speed on-chip clocks consists
of a phase-frequency detector (PFD), charge-pump (CP), loop-filter (LF),
voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and clock-divider (DIV). PFD tracks the
phase and frequency difference between the reference signal and the divider
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output signal outputs digital pulse-width modulated (PWM) signals to the

CP which essentially converts these digital pulses into an analog current
signal. The LF then takes the CP output current signal, low-pass filters the
high-frequency noise components and outputs a control voltage that drives
the VCO. The VCO is the most-critical component within the PLL as it is
the circuit-block that generates the final output clock that is used to drive
the digital circuits of the link. Thus, a low phase-noise VCO is of paramount
importance in the PLL as the VCO phase-noise is the dominant noise-form
in the PLL. Finally, the divider is used in the feedback loop back to the PFD
as the VCO output needs to be brought back down to the same frequency
level as the reference clock so that the loop can dynamically drive all staticphase errors between reference clock and divider clock to zero such that
fOU T = fREF , where is the multiplying factor and the loop is locked
to output a stable clock at the desired frequency of operation. The various
intricacies involved in PLL design are covered in the remainder of the thesis.

2.3.4 Channel

Figure 2.5: Typical Serial Link Channel Responses

Figure 2.5 [3] shows the attenuation levels a typical serial link channel incurs
as a function of operating frequency. Figure 2.6 and 2.7 show the eye diagram
outputs from a backplane channel interface at 1Gbps and 10Gbps data-rates
respectively. Notice that the eye is fully open at 1Gbps but at 10Gbps the
signal is almost indistinguishable from the noise at the receiver side due to
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the tremendous loss and distortion incurred along the channel. The HSSL
designers need to be able to account for such losses when designing the blocks
of the HSSL at both a system as well as circuit level. As stated earlier, the
channel induced degradation is the primary limiting factor during the entire
link-design process.

Amplitude (AU)

Inphase Signal
1
0
1
0

4
Time (s)

6
10
x 10

Figure 2.6: 1Gbps Backplane Link Eye Diagram

Amplitude (AU)

Inphase Signal
1

1
0

4
Time (s)

6
11
x 10

Figure 2.7: 10Gbps Backplane Link Eye Diagram

2.3.5 Equalization
Equalization is a method of combatting the detrimental effects of intersymbol interference (ISI) caused by the bandlimited channel. Equalizers are
typically implemented as linear or non-linear adaptive filters. Equalization
performed before the channel is referred to as pre-emphasis and basically
involves passing the TX signal through a filter whose transfer function is the
inverse of the channel transfer function. Conversely, equalization at the RX
end is used to undo the distortion incurred in the received signal due to the
channel loss and dispersion. Most RX equalization schemes are adaptive and
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are implemented using DSP techniques to cancel out the channel loss from
the received data-bits.

2.3.6 Clock and Data Recovery (CDR)

A CDR as the name suggests is responsible for extracting the clock information of the transmitter from the received signal. In modern HSSLs, a
clock-recovery mechanism is essential at the receiver end because TX clock
information is typically embedded inside the incoming data pulse-stream at
the receiver input. At heart, a CDR is essentially a modified PLL circuit
wherein the phase-detector now has to sample the incoming data-stream and
extract both data and phase information from it [3]. The PD of the CDR
detects the transitions in the received data-stream and the VCO generates
a periodic clock that drives the decision circuit within the PD to retime the
distorted received data and then regenerates the system clock with lower
skew and jitter. CDR design is a lot more intricate than PLL design because
in the case of the CDR, loop bandwidth is often very small and governed by
the jitter tolerance specifications of the system, meaning there is not much
room for VCO phase-noise reduction. The most common implementation of a
CDR (as shown in Figure 2.8) includes a regular PLL loop to track the exactfrequency of the TX clock, a phase-tracking loop with special phase-detector
to produce the retimed data and a common VCO to output a low-jitter,
phase-noise replica of the TX clock.

Figure 2.8: Typical Clock and Data Recovery Unit Implementation

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2.3.7 Deserializer
The deserializer circuit, as the name suggests, converts the input serial bitstream data back into its original parallel bus form. It is also a completely
digital block and it succeeds the RX driver circuit. Basically, the deserializer
is just a demultiplexer circuit that is driven by the clock that is recovered by
the CDR.

2.3.8 Coding Schemes

Nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) pulses are commonly used as the basis function for
discrete data transmission. The response of the channel to the NRZ pulse
is defined as the pulse response and is traditionally used to analyze and
model the effects of a channel on data transmission and also in the design of
equalizers in the case of channels with large attenuation at the frequency of
interest. Apart from NRZ signaling, designers can also implement advanced
modulation techniques for faster, robust signaling. For example, multilevel
PAM like PAM-4 has much higher spectral efficiencies and can transmit two
bits per symbol. This enables the transmission of an equivalent amount
of data in half the channel bandwidth. In modern serial links along with
the signaling schemes, some amount of encoding is also present in the datastream. Most commonly used encoding schemes are 8B/10B and 16B/20B
wherein 10bits or 20bits are sent but only 8bits/16bits are actual meaningful
data bits, and this is powerful as it improves the BER. The only drawback
of encoding is that it further adds complexity to the transceiver design as a
encoder/decoder circuit needs to be designed and more bits need to be sent
through the same bandwidth-limited channel.

2.3.9 HSSL Figures of Merit

HSSL performance is limited by the channel as well as the process technology
used during circuit design. Since data-rates are scaling faster than the available channel bandwidths, the major constraint in realizing robust, high-speed
interfaces is improving the maximum available clock frequency for on-chip
synthesis. The channel bandwidth is the major constraint in overall system
performance; thus, dealing with channel loss and designing clever equaliza13

tion techniques are the biggest design challenges in HSSLs today. Robustness
therefore is the most important metric of performance for link designers. The
primary figures-of-merit (FOM) for HSSLs are bit-error-rate (BER), jitter,
crosstalk analysis and timing/noise analysis [1].
BER in modern HSSLs is typically between 1012 and 1015 and it is the
main metric used to signify the integrity of the received data-bits. A BER of
1012 means that 1 bit will incur an error along the link when we transmit a
total of 1012 bits. Measurement/Estimation of BER is one of the fundamental
challenges faced by link designers because in order to accurately conclude
that the link actually has a BER of the order 1012 , one needs to simulate a
random sequence of at least 1012 bits which even in current state-of-the art
simulators is next to impossible. Therefore, most simulators use statistical
means to collectively analyze the effects of deterministic noise sources such as
Intersymbol Interference (ISI), supply-noise, timing-jitter as well as random
noise sources like white-thermal noise and random jitter when estimating the
system BER.
A common method to measure timing jitter is to use eye-diagrams. Eye
diagrams are constructed by slicing the time-domain signal waveform into
small sections and overlaying them on top of each other such that the resulting shape resembles an eye. The horizontal axis of the eye diagram
represents time and is typically one or two symbols wide, and the vertical
axis represents the amplitude of the signal. Ideally, we want the eye to be as
open as possible, since a larger eye opening signifies that there is a large
enough margin to meet any voltage and timing requirements needed by the
system. Quantitatively speaking, the minimum height and width of the data
at the receiver are key metrics for evaluating link performance. As link designers, we want the receiver eye to be wide enough to provide adequate time
to satisfy the setup and hold requirement of the flip-flops used, and have sufficient height to ensure that the voltage levels meet vil and vih requirements
of the system in the presence of multiple noise sources. Figure 2.9 [6] shows
an example of what sampling an eye with and without jitter means.

14

Figure 2.9: Eye Diagram Terminology and FOMs

The most prominent source of signal degradation in HSSLs over a bandlimited channel is Intersymbol Interference (ISI). ISI results when a sequence of
signals are passed through a channel whose bandwidth is insufficient to allow
passage of all the spectral components of the signal. It is a form of signal
distortion caused due to reflections, channel resonances, and channel loss/dispersion. Simplest way to understand ISI is to view it as interference between
symbols wherein current bit/symbol causes distortion in subsequent/preceding bit/symbol. ISI degrades as data-rates increase and channel bandwidth
remains the same, and the only way to combat it is through clever equalization techniques on either the TX, RX ends or both. Another form of
interference which is slowly becoming a major hindrance for link designers
as data-rates scale is crosstalk (XT), which is a phenomenon occurring due
to presence of capacitive as well as inductive coupling between neighboring
signal lines in a transceiver. Typically, most of the XT effects are felt at the
connector/package levels of a channel where the signal spacings are small
compared to the distance between shields [6]. Near-End XT (NEXT) and
Far-End XT (FEXT) are the two classes of XT wherein NEXT is defined as
the XT due to energy dissipated from coupling between transmitted signal
and the reflected signal on the same chip, while FEXT is defined as the XT
due to energy dissipated from coupling between transmitted signals of two
different chips. NEXT is by far the most deleterious type of XT and the
most commonly observed kind because the TX energy levels are typically
very high compared to the RX signal levels so the received signal can really
be submerged inside it if proper care is not taken.
15

Finally, the last major metric in calculating the timing margin of a HSSL
is the jitter. Characterization of deterministic as well as random timing jitter
in a clock output is very important to a link designer. Essentially, jitter is
the time-domain variation in the clock-signal as shown in Figure 2.10 [10].
A commonly used method for jitter calculation is to close either side of the
eye horizontally by the amount of peak clock jitter. While this method can
be helpful in evaluating the effects of jitter at the receiver end, we will show
in this paper that this is an overly optimistic approximation of noise margin
degradation for transmitter jitter. Due to the need for integration of clock
generators such as PLLs in large digital chips, clock jitter is dominated by
power-supply and substrate noise, both of which do not scale with technology. Therefore, as data rates increase, bit-periods become shorter and the
performance of multi-gigabit links will be limited by the clock jitter, thereby
initiating the importance of accurately analyzing the effects of clock jitter on
high-speed serial links. Figure 2.11 [5] provides a summary of common jitter
profiles in a typical serial link.

Figure 2.10: Timing Jitter Example

Figure 2.11: Summary of Common Jitter Profiles

16

CHAPTER 3
PLL THEORY AND BACKGROUND

3.1 PLL Applications

Phase-Locked Loops (PLLs) are one of the most fundamental and ubiquitous
circuits found in any communications (wireless, wireline) and high-speed digital systems. Monolithic CMOS implementation of PLLs has gained lots of
popularity over the last few decades due to an insatiable demand for high
performance digital systems. Most common uses of a PLL are in the form
of frequency synthesizers and carrier/clock recovery circuits both in the RF
domain as well as the high-speed digital domain.

3.2 Basic PLL Building Blocks

3.2.1 Phase/Phase-Frequency Detector (PD or PFD)
In a PLL, unlike many other feedback systems, the variable of interest
changes dimension around the loop: it is converted from phase to voltage
(or current) by the phase detector, processed by the LPF as such, and converted back to phase by the VCO. In the lock condition, the input and output
frequencies are exactly equal, regardless of the magnitude of the loop gain
(although the phase error may not be zero). This is an extremely important
property because many applications are intolerant or even small (systematic)
differences between the input and output frequencies [15].
The PD compares the phase of the output signal with the phase of the
reference signal and develops an output signal that is approximately proportional to the phase-error e . The output voltage of the PD is proportional to
the phase-difference between the reference signal and the output signal. The

17

PD serves as an error-amplifier in the feedback loop, thereby minimizing

the phase-difference, , between the reference signal, Vref (t) and the oscillator output signal, Vout . The loop is considered to be locked if is
constant with time, a result of which is that the input and output frequencies are equal. In locked condition, all the signals in the loop have reached
steady state and the PLL operates as follows. The phase detector produces
an output whose DC value is proportional to . The low-pass filter suppresses high-frequency components in the PD output, allowing the DC value
to control the VCO frequency. The VCO then oscillates at a frequency equal
to the input frequency and with a phase-difference equal to . Thus, the
LPF filter generates the proper control voltage for the VCO. The VCO phase
can be seen to be an initial condition of the system, as it is independent of
the initial conditions in the LPF. Whenever two frequencies become equal
at a point in time and has not established the required control voltage
for the VCO, the loop will continue the transient, temporarily making the
frequencies unequal again. In other words, both frequency-acquisition and
phase-acquisition must be completed. This behavior is to be expected because for lock to occur again, all the initial conditions of the system, including
the VCO output phase, must be updated [15].
The biggest pitfall of using just a PD is that it does not capture any step
changes in frequency; thus, in order to be able to track both phase and
frequency we need to use a phase-frequency detector (PFD). The purpose of
a PFD is to compare the reference clock signal and the VCO output clock
after division in both phase and frequency. These frequencies are generally
denoted by FREF and FV CO respectively. The basic structure can be divided
into logic control part and a charge pump. The charge pump is a current
source in series with a current sink and the output node is like a switch
that resides in between the source and sink. The logic part consists of two
D-Flip-Flops (DFFs) and the outputs of these DFFs control the switch of
the charge pump. Conceptually the PFD can be viewed as a state machine
with three states. The initial state is 0 and both DFFs will be reset if VCO
and reference signal are both high. In state -1 only current sink is turned
on and sinks charge out of the load, thereby decreasing the output voltage;
in state 0 current source and current sink are turned off so no charge is
injected or extracted out of the output node, thereby keeping the output
voltage unchanged. In state 1 only current source is turned on so charge can
18

be injected into the output node, thereby increasing the output voltage. The
state transitions are controlled by the edges of VCOs output and reference
signal; thus it is clear that the PFD is a purely digital circuit.

Figure 3.1: PFD Operation

(a)

(b)

Figure 3.2: PFD Functionality

Figures 3.1 and 3.2 show the block diagram of a PFD and demonstrate its
functionality. Essentially, when the reference clock is faster than the divider
clock, UP signal is High, DN signal is Low and vice versa. Note that when
both the reference and divider clocks are synchronized both UP and DN
signals are set to be High. The phase frequency detector (PFD) is a circuit
that linearly translates the phase difference into voltage signals. The ideal
average input/output relationship should be:
Ve = KP D e
where |e | < 2
KP F D is defined as the PFD gain.

19

(3.1)

3.2.2 Charge-Pump (CP)

The charge pump is the device that translates the digital voltage signals
generated from PFD into a current signal. Since the voltage controlled oscillator needs a stable voltage to control the oscillating frequency, a charge
storage capacitor is needed. In order dump enough charge into the capacitor, a charge pump is needed here. Together with the PFD the s-domain
transform becomes the following:
KP F D =

iCharge P ump
2

(3.2)

3.2.3 Loop-Filter (LF)

PLLs act as high-pass filters so the purpose of the loop filter is to filter out
the high-frequency components from the output of the PFD. Typically, loopfilters are just simple passive RC networks whose main objective is to filter
out the high-frequency noise data from the PFD output.

3.2.4 Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO)

VCOs are the most important and complex component of the overall PLL
design. The essential idea behind a VCO design is to generate a clock signal
based on the Barkhausen criteria for oscillation which states that the magnitude of the VCO transfer function at the oscillation-frequency is 1 while
the phase is -180 degrees. Two most popular VCO topologies whose sample
architectures are ring-based and LC-tank based. Due to the superior noise
performance we chose to design a LC-Tank based VCO. VCO is the device
that generates the target clock. Ideally, its output frequency should be linearly related to the input control voltage. The Laplace transform function
of the VCO is derived as follows:
out (t) = KV CO vctrl (t)

(3.3)

L[out (t)] = out (s) = KV CO vctrl (s)

(3.4)

20

Zt
out (t) =

Zt
out ( )d =

KV CO vctrl ( )d

(3.5)

KV CO vctrl (s)
out (s)
=
s
s
Thus, the Laplace transform function for the VCO is:
L[out (t)] = out (s) =

HV CO (s) =

out (s)
KV CO
=
vctrl (s)
s

(3.6)

(3.7)

The KV CO is defined as the VCO gain.

3.2.5 Divider
A frequency divider is needed to produce a clock signal that runs many times
faster than the reference clock. The PFD input clock and reference clock have
to be synchronized for PLL to be in locked condition. In order to perform
this task we use a fractional-N divider circuit, which divides the VCO clock
by the highest power of 2 factor to synchronize reference clock signal and the
divider output clock.

3.2.6 Analysis of a PLL in Locked-State

The open-loop transfer function of the PLL is equal to HO = KP D GLP F (s) KVsCO ,
(s)
KP D KV CO GLP F (s)
yielding the closed-loop transfer function H(s) = out
= s+K
.
in (s)
P D KV CO GLP F (s)
In its simplest form, a low pass filter is implemented to have the trans1
fer function GLP F (s) = 1+ 1 s ,where LP F = RC
. Thus, for a PLL conLP F

taining a first-order LPF the closed-loop response is represented as H(s) =

KP D KV CO
indicating that the system is of second-order, where one
s
+s+KP D KV CO
LP F
pole is contributed by the VCO and the other by the LPF. Here, K =
KP D KV CO is called the loop-gain and expressed in rad/s. In order to understand the dynamic behavior of the PLL, the denominator of the second-order
closed-loop response is converted to a form commonly used in control theory: s2 + 2n s + n2 , where is the damping factor and n is the natural
frequency of the system. Therefore, the closed-loop response can now be
p F

2
n
expressed as H(s) = s2 +2
LP F K and = 21 LP
.
2 , where n =
K
n s+n
Note that n is the geometric mean of the -3dB bandwidth of the LPF and
21

the loop-gain, and thus an indicator of the gain-bandwidth product of the

loop. The damping factor is inversely proportional to the loop gain. Typically, in a well designed second order system, is usually greater than 0.5

and preferably equal to 22 so as to provide an optimally flat response. Thus,

K and LP F cannot be chosen independently; for example if = 22 , then

F
K = LP
. If s 0, we note that H(s) 1; i.e. a static phase shift at the
2
input is transferred to the output unchanged. We can examine the phase
s2 +2n s
error transfer function defined as He (s) = 1 H(s) = ine (s)
= s2 +2
2
(s)
n s+n
which drops to 0 as s 0 [15].

3.2.7 PLL Characteristics and Figures of Merit

The most important metrics of a PLL are Order, Type, Hold-In range, Lockin range, and Pull-in range. The order of a PLL is determined by the number
of poles in the loop while the type is determined by the number of integrators.
The VCO always has a pre-existing pole because it generates frequency from
phase via an integration; thus every PLL is at least of order 1 and type 1. As
the loop-filter poles increases and the PLL order and type increases as well
and higher the type, the better the PLL is at tracking both frequency and
phase. For instance, a type 2 PLL is capable of tracking both a step change
in phase as well as frequency with zero steady-state phase error while a type
1 PLL can only track a step change in phase.
Hold-In range of a PLL is a measure of the DC loop gain and the range
of frequencies under which the PLL can maintain a lock. Lock-In range is
a measure of the range of frequencies under which a PLL can acquire lock
without slipping any clock-cycles. Finally, the Pull-In range is the measure
of the range of frequencies for which the PLL can acquire lock by missing a
few clock cycles. It is important to note that the hold-in range is the largest
of the three and lock-in range is the smallest of the three metrics.

22

CHAPTER 4
PLLs IN CLOCKING CIRCUITS

4.1 Charge-Pump (CP) PLLs Overview

in

hW
PFD

/W
sK

ref

E

sdZ>
Z

/W



out

div

Figure 4.1: Charge-Pump PLL Block Diagram

Figure 4.1 shows the basic building blocks of a CPLL. Charge-Pump PLLs
offer many advantages over the classical voltage phase-detector PLL including
an infinite pull-in range and zero steady-state phase error. CPLLs also allow
one to use a passive filter and still have many of the benefits of using an
active filter with the voltage phase detector. The exception to this case is
when the VCO tuning voltage needs to be higher than the PLL can supply;
in this case, an active filter is necessary [15].
Phase-frequency detectors with charge-pump combination offer several advantages over the voltage charge pump and have all but replaced it. The PFD
and CP blocks are universally present in every PLL based synthesizer chip.
Using this approach completely bypasses issues of steady-state phase error
and hold-in range [10].
23

4.2 CPLL Linear Model and Analysis

W&W
>&

e(s)

REF (s)

<W

Vctrl (s)

&

sK
<sK

OUT (s)

Vctrl (s)

Z



Figure 4.2: Linear s-Domain Model for Charge-Pump PLL

Figure 4.2 shows the linear s-domain model for CPLLs. From the previous
section we can now define the open loop transfer function as follows:
LG(s) = KP D F (s)

KV CO
s

(4.1a)

1
s + RC
1


C
1 +C2
C2 s2 s + RC
1 C2

(4.1b)

1
C1 + C2
; p1 = p2 = 0; p3 =
RC1
RC1 C2

(4.2)

= KP D KV CO

From the open loop gain we notice that

z =

The phase margin will be:


M = arctan

ugb
z


arctan

ugb
p3


(4.3)

where ugb is the open loop unity gain bandwidth and z < ugb .
In order to achieve maximum phase margin, the value of C1 and C2 have
to be chosen carefully. To calculate the expression of M max we take the
first order derivative of Eq. 4.3 with respect to ugb and equate the result to
zero, such that:
r
C1
ugb = z
+1
(4.4)
C2

24

Subsequently,
r
M

max

= arctan(

C1
1
+ 1) arctan( q
)
C1
C2
+1

(4.5)

C2

The design procedure of the loop filter is as follows:

1. Choose desired bandwidth ugb , phase margin M and resistor R according to specification. Then calculate the Kc from Eq. 4.6:
C1
Kc =
= 2(tan2 (M ) + tan(M
C2
2. From Eq. 4.4 we have:
z = q

C1 =

q
tan2 (M ) + 1))

ubg
C1
C2

(4.6)

(4.7)

+1

C1
1
; C2 =
;
z R
Kc

(4.8)

3. From aforementioned equations, we can determine the value for ICP :

ICP

2C2
2
=
KV CO ugb

2
2
+ ugb
p3
2
z2 + ugb

(4.9)

It is vital to analytically confirm that the PLL will indeed lock when there
is a frequency step applied at the input. Without loss of generality assume
, then in (s) =
. First, obtain the
there is input frequency step in =
s
s2
closed loop transfer function:
HP LL (s) =

LG(s)
1 + LG(s)

(4.10)

Lastly, define steady state error transfer function:

error (s)
1
= He (s) = 1 HP LL (s) =
in (s)
1 + LG(s)

25

(4.11)

Applying the final value theorem, we get the steady state error to be:
Fssstep
error = lim s He (s) in (s)

(4.12a)

s0

1
2
s0
1 + LG(s) s
[RC1 C2 s2 + (C1 + C2 )s]
= lim
s0 RC1 C2 s3 + (C1 + C2 )s2 + KV CO KP D s + 1
0
=
1
=0
= lim s

(4.12b)
(4.12c)
(4.12d)
(4.12e)

Eq. 4.12(a) to 4.12(e) indicate that the PLL we have designed can eliminate
any steady state phase error and relock when a frequency step is applied at
the input [8].

4.3 CPLL Noise-Analysis

The following equations describe the noise-transfer functions of the CPLL
and are used in determining the optimal PLL BW.
N T FIN (s) =

N LG(s)
OU T (s)
=
IN (s)
1 + LG(s)

N T FDIV (s) = N T FIN (s)

N T FCP (s) =

OU T (s)
2
=
N T FIN (s)
iCP (s)
ICP

(4.13)
(4.14)
(4.15)

KV CO
OU T (s)
s
=
N T FR (s) =
vR (s)
1 + LG(s)

(4.16)

IN
SOU
= SIN |N T FIN (s)|2
T

(4.17)

SiCP
= SiCP |N T FCP (s)|2
OU T

(4.18)

SvROU T = SvR |N T FR (s)|2

(4.19)

V CO
SOU
= SV CO |N T FV CO (s)|2
T

(4.20)

GLP F (s) =

26

1
1+

s
LP F

(4.21)

H(s) =

s
LP F

KP D KV CO
+ s + KP D KV CO

s2 + 2n s + n2
n2
s2 + 2n s + n2
r
p
1 LP F
n = LP F K, =
2
K

2
LP F
=
, = K =
2
2
H(s) =

Figure 4.3: Loop-Gain and Phase-Margin Response

Figure 4.4: CPLL Output Noise Model

27

(4.22)
(4.23)
(4.24)
(4.25)
(4.26)

Figure 4.5: CPLL Output Noise Simulation

Figure 4.3 [8] shows the typical loop-gain and phase-margin plot for a
CPLL. Recall that phase-margin is the difference in phase between 180 C
and the phase value corresponding to ugb . Figure 4.4 shows the typical
noise-profile for each component in a CPLL based Integer-N synthesizer [12].
Figure 4.5 shows the noise-transfer function characterization for the PLL
using the above equations implemented in MATLAB. The beauty of this
analysis is that it accurately predicts what the noise-profile for the PLL will
look like so that the designer can determine the BW specifications for the
PLL from which the rest of the Loop-Filter and VCO specifications can be
determined.

28

CHAPTER 5
PLL BASED CLOCK GENERATOR

5.1 PFD
Figure 5.1 shows the NAND PFD implementation used in the design of the
PLL used in this thesis. In Figure 5.2 the transistor-level implementation for
each of the circuits shown in Figure 5.1 are displayed with the appropriate
sizing.

sZ&

hW

Z^d

E

s/s

sZ&
s/s

W&

hW
E

Figure 5.1: NAND PFD Implementation

29

8m
0.18m

8m
0.18m

8m
0.18m
8m
0.18m

4m
0.18m

4m
0.18m

8m
0.18m

8m
0.18m

8m
8m
0.18m 0.18m

8m
8m
0.18m 0.18m

8m
0.18m

16m
0.18m

12m
0.18m
12m
0.18m

16m
0.18m

12m
0.18m

16m
0.18m
16m
0.18m

Figure 5.2: PFD Transistor Level Circuit Blocks

One of the major challenges during the design of an efficient PFD circuit is
the dead-zone problem. Dead-zone is refers to the region wherein there
is no output for inputs. It is equal to the sum of the on-times of the pullup/pull-down switches in the charge-pump and is typically a problem because
the presence of dead-zone causes the PLL to operate in open-loop when the
phase-error is zero. One method to overcome the dead-zone issue is to ensure
that the PFD generates equal UP/DN pulses whose width is larger than the
switch-on time of the CP switches. The NAND-PFD implementation is one
example of a PFD circuit where the dead-zone issue is avoided. The D-FlipFlops are designed using cross-coupled NAND-latches and even though this
uses up a lot of on-chip area and burns a lot of power in the PFD circuit, the
large delay in UP/DN feedback paths allows the pulse-widths to be just larger
than the switch-on time of the PMOS/NMOS transistors that act as the pullup/pull-down switches in the CP. The maximum operating frequency of a
1
.
PFD circuit is determined by the reset path delay such that Fmax < 2TRST
In the case of a NAND PFD circuit, TRST = 2TN AN D2 + TN AN D4 , where we
intentionally design the NAND4 circuit to have a high delay to minimize the
reset period.
30

5.2 CPs
Figure 5.3 shows the CP implementation used in the design of the PLL used
in this thesis. The transistor-level implementation is also displayed with the
appropriate sizing.
s

s

M0

M2

M0

M1

8m
0.18m

16m
0.18m

16m
0.18m

8m
0.18m

sKhd
M2
M4

M6
16m
0.18m

hW

16m
0.18m

hW
iW

8m
0.18m

8m
0.18m

ITAIL = 3mA

M8

M5
8m
0.18m

E

M3

8m
0.18m

E

M3

M1

8m
0.18m

8m
0.18m

s
hW
/W
iW
/W
E

hW
E

W

iW

Figure 5.3: Bootstrapped Charge-Pump Implementation

The charge-pump circuit needs to be carefully designed in because it is
the main contributor to low-frequency PLL noise. The current mismatch in
the charge-pump leads to static-phase offset and causes ripples in the control
voltage, thereby creating a jittery VCO output clock. Thus, it is important
31

to design a CP circuit that has equivalent pull-up and pull down currents and
equal on-time for the PMOS/NMOS switches. Though several CP architectures exist, a Bootstrapped CP design is used in the clock-generating PLL
studied in this thesis. The advantage of the Bootstrapped architecture is
that it allows differential current steering, it can operate with low-swing UP,
DN signals. It is thus very prominent in PLLs that use high-speed reference
clock signals. The term bootstrapped are appropriate because the voltage
following op-amp between the pull-up and pull-down current networks ensures that an equal voltage level is maintained on either ends such that the
pull-up current is equal to the pull-down current.

5.3 LF

R = 5k
C2 = 561.27fF

C1 = 72.766pF

>&
Figure 5.4: Loop-Filter Implementation
Loop-Filter is designed using the design-procedure described in Chapter 4 in
the CPLL design procedure algorithm. The algorithm was implemented in
MATLAB to choose the values shown above in Figure 5.4.

32

5.4 VCOs
s
M8

M0

M9

12m
0.18m

M2
12m
0.18m

3m
0.18m

M4

M6
12m
0.18m

12m
0.18m

24m
0.18m

s
M1

M3
5m
0.18m

M5
5m
0.18m

5m
0.18m
CL0=100fF

M7

CL1=100fF

10m
0.18m
CL2=100fF

s
M8

12m
0.18m

M9

3m
0.18m

Figure 5.5: Single-Ended 3-Stage Ring Oscillator

A 3-Stage ring-oscillator is implemented with a driver inverter (as shown
in Figure 5.5 with full transistor-level sizing) whose size is fixed such that
the input capacitance seen by the divider remains constant while the VCO
frequency is changing. M8 and M9 act as the pull-up resistors, i.e. they are
PMOS transistors that are biased to be in triode/resistive region. In order
to ensure the oscillation starts, the gate of M9 is driven to ground while gate
of M8 is driven by the control voltage which alters the phase-delay between
the ring to vary to the oscillation frequency.
33

5.5 Divider
s
M2

M0
8m
0.18m

M3
8m
0.18m

M5
8m
0.18m

8m
0.18m


M1

M6

4m
0.18m

M8
4m
0.18m

Y
Y

M9

M7
8m
0.18m

><

4m
0.18m

M10
M11
4m
4m
4m
0.18m
0.18m
0.18m


Y

DFF

><

Figure 5.6: TSPC Based D Flip-Flop Architecture

><

Y

Y

Y

DFF

DFF

DFF

><

Figure 5.7: Divider Architecture

The divider circuit consists of 3-DFFs that are connected together in the
manner shown in Figure 5.7 to realize a divide-by-8 operation. Division in
binary is essentially a left-shift operation; thus, tying the outputs of each
DFF to clock input of the next while connecting the input to the inverse of
output in a feedback ensures a left-shift operation. Since the PLL output
frequency is in the GHz range, the DFF design is very critical. To realize a
fast DFF with low clock-skew and delay a TSPC (True-Single Phase Clock)
architecture (as shown in Figure 5.6) is employed. The basic idea is that
when CLK is high transistors M1 and M9 are ON/OFF respectively and vice
versa, thereby preserving the state except when CLK goes from low to high,
in which case the output follows the data-input signal denoted by D.

34

CHAPTER 6
BEHAVIORAL LEVEL SIMULATION

6.1 Why Behavioral Modeling?

Traditionally SPICE is used as a common simulation engine to simulate
analog/mixed-signal circuit. However, when simulating large networks the
simulation times can become extremely long, thereby limiting the allowed
design revisions to the circuit designer. It is very tedious to describe the
behavior of a circuit using SPICE unless the complete physical transistorlevel structure of the circuit is known to the designer. Furthermore, the
SPICE simulation process is very technology dependent in that with technology scaling the SPICE models need to be updated as the older models
become obsolete and invalid for accurate simulation. The aforementioned design process has remained virtually the same over the past few decades and
even though the digital design synthesis process has progressed significantly
by incorporating electronic system-level (ESL) design automation techniques,
the mixed signal design process is very slow, laborious and therefore errorprone. Digital design engineers, though working with millions of transistors,
have been able to automate the design flow, but analog designers have been
unable to do so even though most analog circuits only consist of tens of
thousands of devices.

6.2 Why Verilog-AMS?

Verilog-AMS is a high-level Hardware Description Language (HDL) used to
describe the structure and behavior of analog and mixed-signal systems. It
is an extension to the IEEE 1364 Verilog HDL standard and is very powerful in providing fast prototyping capabilities for mixed-signal systems. The

35

key advantage of circuit modeling using Verilog-AMS is that it provides a

single language and simulator ecosystem that can be shared between analog, digital and system-level designers. Verilog-AMS leverages the superior
speed and capacity offered by traditional Verilog and allows event-driven
capabilities within analog model simulation, making it an attractive choice
when simulating highly complex mixed-signal circuits such as PLLs, CDRs,
ADCs, and DACs. The only pitfall of using Verilog-AMS is that it cannot replace traditional transistor level SPICE simulation completely as it does not
have synthesis capabilities like its digital counterpart Verilog. However, at
the onset of the design phase, using Verilog-AMS for circuit modeling is very
powerful for a mixed-signal circuit/system design engineer as it offers fast
prototyping/verification for behavioral level simulation, thereby expediting
the time-to-market for the system.
Verilog-AMS combines both Verilog-D and Verilog-A including a few additional mixed-signal constructs to provide a HDL language capable of performing truly mixed-signal simulation. Cadence has been the front-runner
in promoting the language making it an industry standard, and has led the
majority of the advancement efforts ever since its release in 2003. The power
of Verilog-AMS simulator in Cadence Virtuoso is that it can perform cosimulation among behavioral analog/digital blocks described by corresponding Verilog-A and Verilog-D models respectively as well as transistor-level
circuit blocks by running the Spectre simulation. When a circuit consisting of transistor-level circuit elements, analog behavioral modules written
in Verilog-A and digital behavioral modules written in Verilog-D is simulated, the AMS simulator in Cadence partitions the testbench into analog
and digital components. The simulator then merges the analog simulation
results from Spectre with the digital simulation results from NC-SIM and
the resulting output is plotted just like that in the case of traditional Spectre
simulation [4].

6.3 Basic Verilog-A/AMS Syntax

A typical skeleton of a Verilog-AMS code is shown in Figure 6.1 where the
main components of a Verilog-A/AMS code are listed.

36

Figure 6.1: Verilog-AMS Sample Code

In the first line of the sample code shown in Figure 6.1 [4], we include
the disciplines.vams header file. This file is a collection of physical signal
types that are commonly used in Verilog-AMS and are thus referred to as
natures. Electrical disciplines consist of voltages and currents and are
used most commonly during mixed-signal system modeling where voltage
and current are natures. Every Verilog-AMS component is defined as a
module and modules are the basic building blocks of any given VerilogAMS files as they describe the component being modeled. Ports are the
points where connections are made to the given component. Every port is
required to have a direction associated with it, and by default in VerilogAMS language there are three types of ports: input, output and inout.
The keyword electrical signifies that the signals associated with the ports
described as electrical are of voltage and current natures. Additionally,
analog is the keyword after which point the Verilog-AMS compiler starts
actual modeling as the logic/process starts after the analog begin. Finally,
every Verilog-AMS component code should end with the word endmodule
as it signifies the point at which the compiler stops parsing of the code [4].

37

6.4 PLL Simulation in AMS Using Cadence Virtuoso

6.4.1 PFD+CP
1. Create a new library and name it PLLBehav. Now within the Library
Manager window, click on F ile N ew Cell V iew and call the new
VerilogAMS file pf d. Choose the VerilogAMSText option from the
drop-down Menu as shown in Figure 6.2. Click OK and a text editor
window will open up.
2. Figure 6.3 shows the PFD code used in the design. The PFD is
a completely digital circuit; thus, this code is essentially in VerilogD syntax where the UP, DN signals are generated by comparing the
rising edges of the flip-flops that have a CLK signal of FREF and FDIV
respectively.

Figure 6.2: PFD Verilog-AMS Code Setup

38

Figure 6.3: PFD Verilog-AMS Code

3. Once you have written the code as shown in Figure 6.4, save and exit
the text editor. A pop-up window like Figure 6.4 will open up. Click
Yes to generate the symbol for the pfd.

Figure 6.4: PFD Verilog-AMS Symbol

4. Within the PLLBehav library you created above, click on F ile

N ew Cell V iew and call the new schematic pf d tb as shown in
Figure 6.5. Double-click on this cell-view and a schematic window will
open up.

39

Figure 6.5: PFD Verilog-AMS Schematic

5. In order to create a circuit in the schematic editor, we need to add

instances or circuit-components like transistors, supply nets and wires.
To add an instance press I from your keyboard. This will open up a
Component Browser. Choose the PLLBehav library and within it
select the symbol for pfd. Repeat the same process to add the vpulse
components found in the analogLib library. Make sure the fref and
fdiv sources have a 100ps delay between each other. Figure 6.6 shows
what your test-bench schematic should look like.

Figure 6.6: PFD Verilog-AMS Testbench

6. When simulating Verilog-AMS files in Cadence Virtuoso, we need to

create a config file whose job is to link the analog test-bench sources
and the verilog simulation engines together. In order to do so, within
the pfd test cell-view click on F ile N ew Cell V iew and call
the new config pf d test as shown in Figure 6.7. Double-click on this
cell-view and a New Configuration window will open up. Click on Use
Template, choose the AMS template and configure the setup as shown
in Figure 6.8(a). Finally the configuration setup will look like that
40

shown in Figure 6.8(b), so click on Save and press Open. Now a

window like the schematic view will open up but this time it will have
config in the title.

Figure 6.7: Config File Creation

(a)

(b)

Figure 6.8: Config File Setup

7. We will simulate our circuits using Cadence AMS Simulation engine.

AMS is capable of simulating Verilog-AMS as well as Spectre components. Spectre is a variant of HSPICE developed by Cadence and
provides greater accuracy, speed and flexibility especially when dealing
with mixed signal circuits.
8. Make sure you first Check and Save your config file and click on
Launch ADE to open up the ADE window.

41

9. Click on Setup Simulator to make sure the Simulator is set to AMS.

Select the output nodes and choose a transient simulation for 100ns as
shown in Figure 6.9.

Figure 6.9: PFD Verilog-AMS ADE Outp Window

10. In the final output waveform shown in Figure 6.10 it is clear that the
PFD is functioning correctly. Notice that the UP,DN pulses are appropriately modulated as REF and DIV signals diverge from one
another.

42

Figure 6.10: PFD Verilog-AMS Simulation Output

11. Within the PLLBehav library follow the steps described earlier to
create a model for the CP as shown in Figure 6.11 and save the file as
cp.

Figure 6.11: CP Verilog-AMS Code

12. Figure 6.12 shows the PFD+CP testbench schematic. Create a new
schematic named cp test as well as a config file following the same
procedure as the PFD. When simulating using the ADE AMS simulator
follow the procedure similar to that shown in Figure 6.9.

43

Figure 6.12: PFD+CP Verilog-AMS Testbench

13. One of the powerful advantages of behavioral modeling is that we can

easily alter values of design variables to modify the functionality of
a block. In the config testbench file if you click on the CP block
and press q, a window as shown in Figure 6.13 will appear. Enter the
appropriate value of charge-pump current as per the design objectives.

Figure 6.13: CP Verilog-AMS Testbench Variable Setup

14. The purpose of the charge-pump is to convert the digital PWM signal
outputs from the PFD into a current. As seen in the code and from
the final output waveform shown in Figure 6.14, it is clear that the
44

PFD+CP is functioning correctly. When UP is high the current the

pull-up current source is on and when DN is high the pull-down current
source is on.

Figure 6.14: PFD+CP Verilog-AMS Simulation Output

6.4.2 LF
We use the analog loop-filter as shown in Figure 5.4.

6.4.3 VCO
1. The VCO is the most critical component of the PLL we try to model
using Verilog-AMS because it allows us to behaviorally estimate the
jitter specifications. Within the PLLBehav library follow the steps
described earlier to create a model for the VCO as shown in Figure
6.15 and save the file as vco. Only the white-noise jitter is considered
in this design and it is modeled by a Gaussian white-noise probability
distribution function.

45

Figure 6.15: VCO Verilog-AMS Code

2. Figure 6.16 shows the VCO testbench schematic. Create a new schematic
named vco test as well as a config file following the same procedure as
the PFD. When simulating using the ADE AMS simulator follow the
procedure similar to that shown in Figure 6.9.

Figure 6.16: VCO Verilog-AMS Testbench

3. Just like in the case of the CP in the config testbench file, if you
click on the VCO block and press q, a window as shown in Figure
6.17 will appear. Enter the appropriate value VCO design parameters
as per the design objectives.

46

Figure 6.17: VCO Verilog-AMS Testbench Variable Setup

4. The VCO circuit is supposed to generate a periodic square-wave output

at the desired frequency of interest (as a function of the control voltage)
with a certain jitter level which in our case is chosen to be 2% UnitInterval (UI) of period. From the final output waveform shown in
Figure 6.18 it is clear that the VCO is functioning correctly.

47

Figure 6.18: VCO Verilog-AMS Simulation Output

6.4.4 Divider
1. Divider is essential when designing a clock-generating circuit as we need
to scale down the VCO output clock to the reference frequency level
such that the two signals can be compared. Within the PLLBehav
library follow the steps described earlier to create a model for the Divider as shown in Figure 6.15 and save the file as div. Figure 6.19
shows the code to implement the divider in Verilog.

48

Figure 6.19: Divider Verilog-AMS Code

2. Figure 6.20 shows the Divider testbench schematic. Create a new

schematic named div test as well as a config file following the same
procedure as the PFD. When simulating using the ADE AMS simulator
follow the procedure similar to that shown in Figure 6.9.

Figure 6.20: Divider Verilog-AMS Testbench

3. Just like in the case of the CP and VCO, in the config testbench file
if you click on the Divider block and press q, a window as shown in
Figure 6.21 will appear. Enter the appropriate value of divide ratio as
per the design objectives.

49

Figure 6.21: VCO Verilog-AMS Testbench Variable Setup

4. The divider circuit is supposed to generate a periodic square-wave output that is fraction of the VCO output frequency. From the final output
waveform shown in Figure 6.22 it is clear that the Divider is functioning correctly in that it divides the VCO output signal by a factor of
8.

Figure 6.22: Divider Verilog-AMS Simulation Output

50

6.4.5 Complete PLL Analysis with Jitter

1. Create a new schematic within the PLLBehav library and name it
PLL. Your schematic should look that shown in Figure 6.23. Now
create a config file for this setup and at the end your configuration
window should look like Figure 6.24.

Figure 6.23: PLL Verilog-AMS Testbench

Figure 6.24: PLL Verilog-AMS Config Setup

2. Using the steps described earlier in this chapter, configure your ADE
window as shown in Figure 6.25 and simulate the circuit.

51

Figure 6.25: PLL Verilog-AMS ADE Setup

3. The PLL circuit outputs are shown in Figure 6.26. It is clear that
the PLL achieves lock within the first 100ns because in the testbench
we provide an initial condition of Vctrl = 0.9V and keep the currents
at the loop-filter capacitors at an initial condition of 0A. These initial
conditions are provided to ensure that the simulation time is small.
From the final output waveforms it is clear that the PLL is indeed
functioning correctly.

Figure 6.26: PLL Verilog-AMS Simulation Output

52

4. To simulate the jitter at the VCO output during lock-condition, select the vout waveform, click on M easurements EyeDiagram and
configure the setup as shown in Figure 6.27. Your final output should
look like that shown in Figure 6.27 once you click on Plot Eye. The
simulated edge-to-edge jitter is 0.96ps which is extremely good. However, it is important to note that this number is not realistic as we
have only accounted for random jitter caused by white-noise and the
model is only behavioral so any transistor-level non-idealities are not
captured. Nevertheless, behavioral modeling is very powerful in performing rapid prototyping of the PLL circuit elements and performs a
system level noise/timing budget for the design before delving straight
into transistor level design.

Figure 6.27: PLL Verilog-AMS Jitter

53

CHAPTER 7
TRANSISTOR LEVEL SIMULATION

7.1 What is SPICE?

Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) is a generalpurpose circuit simulation program that was originally developed at the University of California-Berkeley to serve as a numerical circuit solver that is
capable of performing DC, Transient, as well as AC analyses for electronic circuits. The simulator in general is capable of performing the aforementioned
analyses on circuits containing resistors, capacitors, inductors, independent
voltage and current sources, dependent sources, lossless and lossy transmission lines, switches, uniform distributed RC lines, and the five most common
semiconductor devices: diodes, BJTs, JFETs, MESFETs, and MOSFETs.
Many variants of SPICE have been developed since with the most popular
ones being HSPICE and Spectre.

7.2 SPICE vs. Spectre

The Spectre circuit simulator is a variant of SPICE that was developed by
Cadence to simulate analog and digital circuits at the differential equation
level. Although at a high-level the Spectre and SPICE circuit simulators are
quite similar in terms of functionality, Spectre directly is not dependent on
SPICE and the two simulators also have differing syntax. The parent algorithms for both are primarily the same in that both use the Modified Nodal
Analysis (MNA) method involving implicit integration methods, NewtonRaphson, and direct matrix solution, but the source codes are not borrowed
from original open-source SPICE. Spectre is optimized for faster speed as well
accuracy compared to SPICE and is thus much more reliable and accurate.

54

7.3 Transient, PSS and PNoise Simulation Overview

Transient response is the time-domain simulation response for a given circuit
and is used to study the time-domain behavior of voltages and currents at
any given node in a network. It is a powerful analysis method to study
amplifier circuits; however, in the case of oscillators it falls short in being
able to accurately characterize the harmonic behavior of the outputs. Thus,
to study oscillator, mixer circuits or for that matter any circuit that has a
time-varying or periodic nature, the Periodic Steady State (PSS) analysis is
the preferred method of simulation.
PSS is a large-signal analysis tool and is powerful in accurately determining the approximate small-signal period of the circuit being analyzed. It
uses the Iterative Shooting Newton method to algorithmically determine the
fundamental frequency of the circuit/system based on the input-source frequency excitation. In PSS, a circuit is evaluated for one period of the target
frequency and this period is dynamically adjusted until all node voltages and
branch currents fall within a specified tolerance level. Thus, when simulating
large networks the PSS simulation often fails to converge and the time-step
needs to be manually adjusted. It is also possible that the simulator is just
not robust enough for PSS to converge if the time-step is made too small.
The first step in a PSS simulation is to perform a transient simulation on the
1
. The next step is then to adjust the
network from time t = 0 to t = ff und
time-step adaptively such that the voltage and currents at stabilize within
the threshold levels set for the start and stop times of the shooting interval.
Figure 7.1 further describes this phenomenon graphically. Note: It is critical
to remember that PSS simulation is only valid, and thus will only work, if
the circuit/system being analyzed is periodic as the fundamental assumption
of PSS analysis is periodicity.

Figure 7.1: PSS Simulation Algorithm

55

As discussed in earlier chapters, when studying oscillators and PLL circuits

the phase-noise is a very important parameter to calculate/simulate. Phase
noise is the most significant source of noise in oscillators, and since it is
spectrally centered around the fundamental oscillation frequency, methods
like filtering cannot eliminate it. PNoise analysis engine within Spectre is
equipped to predict the phase-noise, as well as the total-noise profile which
includes thermal, flicker and shot noise. Once the PSS simulation for the
circuit being analyzed has been completed, the PNoise analysis can be started
and it computes the frequency convention, noise-folding and aliasing effects
for the circuit/system.

7.4 PLL Simulation in Spectre Using Cadence Virtuoso

This section presents a detailed step-by-step tutorial on conducting transistor
level simulations using Cadence Virtuosos Spectre circuit simulator engine.
First, an inverter circuit used inside the PFD is described to illustrate the
basic steps required in creating a new schematic and testbench. Second, an
in-depth VCO simulation guide illustrates the steps involved in performing
PSS and PNoise simulations. Lastly, the full PLL consisting of the PFD,
CP, Filter, VCO and Divider blocks is simulated at the transistor level along
with the various steps involved in validating lock condition, noise profile and
transient response.

7.4.1 Creating a New Schematic

1. Create a new library and name it PLL. Now within the Library Manager window click on F ile N ew Cell V iew and call the new
schematic inv. Double-click on this cell-view and a schematic window
will open up.
2. In order to create a circuit in the schematic editor we need to add
instances or circuit-components like transistors, supply nets and wires.
Since we use an inverter as an example, recall that we need one NMOS
and one PMOS transistor; thus, to add an instance press I from your
keyboard. This will open up a Component Browser. Choose the

56

analogLib library. You will notice all the components housed within
the tsmc18rf library listed. The key trick to know is that you can
search for a specific component from the Filter. Search for nmos2v
and follow the steps outline in Figure 7.2.

(a)

(b)

Figure 7.2: Inserting NMOS Transistor on Schematic

57

3. Similarly, following the same steps as (2), add a PMOS transistor to

your schematic by choosing the pmos2v transistor from the tsmc18rf
library. Your schematic should now look like Figure 7.3.

Figure 7.3: PMOS Transistor

4. In order to add wires to your schematic, press W from your keyboard
and make appropriate connections across all transistor elements. Figure
7.4 demonstrates the steps involved in labeling wires with a circuit
schematic. This will come in very handy during simulation, especially
when dealing with circuits with several components.

(a)

(b)

Figure 7.4: Inserting Wire Names on Circuit

58

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 7.5: Creating Pin Names

59

5. It is often advisable to add Pin names to each of the IO terminals

in a circuit. Thus, to add pins to your schematic press P from your
keyboard or click on the pin symbol as shown in Figure 7.5 and make
appropriate connections across all IO ports. Figure 7.5 demonstrates
the steps involved in labeling wires with a circuit schematic.
Note: The VDDA and GNDA pins should be chosen to be InputOutput when selecting the Direction during pin creation.
6. Finally your schematic should look like Figure 7.6. Now click on Check
and Save icon (as shown in Figure 7.7) in the toolbar so that you can
move onto the next step of creating a symbol for the inverter schematic.

Figure 7.6: Inverter Schematic

Figure 7.7: Check and Save

60

7.4.2 Creating a Symbol

1. When dealing with large circuits its often advisable to generate symbols
for each sub-circuit in the design and perform all simulations by placing the corresponding symbols in a testbench. Figure 7.8 summarizes
the steps involved in generating a symbol from the inverter schematic
designed in the previous section.

(a)

(b)

Figure 7.8: Generating Symbol from Schematic

2. Once you create the symbol it will pop up in a new window. By default Cadence will generate a rectangular symbol, but you can edit the
61

generated symbol as per your needs. In our case we will edit the symbol shape to make it resemble the traditional inverter symbol used in
conventional system design (as shown in Figure 7.9). To edit the shape
use the Edit Pallete as shown in Figure 7.9(a) via a red highlighted
box.

(a)

(b)

Figure 7.9: Designing Schematic Symbol

7.4.3 PFD, CP, Filter, VCO and Divider Schematics

1. Using the steps mentioned in the subsections above, create a new
schematic as well as symbols for nand2, nand3 and nand4 circuits
respectively. Make sure you change the symbol shapes for the nand
circuits to the conventional symbols shapes.
62

2. Create a new schematic and save it as pfd. Place the nand2,nand3,nand4

and inv symbols in the schematic and connect the four components
in the NAND-PFD form as shown in Figure pf d.
3. Create a new schematic and save it as bias amp. Now recreate the
biasing op-amp that is part of the charge-pump schematic shown in
Figure 5.3.
4. Create new schematic and save it as cp. Place the biasing amplifier
created in the previous step and recreate the charge-pump circuit shown
in Figure 5.3 from section 5.2.
5. Create a new schematic and save it as filter. Recreate the loop-filter
circuit shown in Figure 5.4 from section 5.3.
6. Create a new schematic and save it as vco. Recreate the VCO circuit
shown in Figure 5.5 from section 5.4.
7. Create a new schematic and save it as dff. Now recreate the biasing
D Flip-Flop that is part of the divider schematic shown in Figure 5.6.
from section 5.5.
8. Create a new schematic and save it as div. Recreate the Divider
circuit shown in Figure 5.7 from section 5.5.

7.4.4 Creating a Testbench

Create a new schematic following the steps outlined in the earlier sections
and name it Tb pfd cp filter. This will be the testbench schematic from
which we will run all our simulations to test that the PFD, CP and the
Filter are functioning as expected. Insert vdc, gnd and two vpulse from
the Component Library by navigating to the Analog Parts library. Figure
7.10 shows the initial conditions to be set for the voltage sources vdc, vpulse
for Vref and vpulse for Vdiv, respectively and Figure 7.11 shows what your
testbench schematic should look like at the end of this step.

63

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 7.10: Sources in PFD+CP+Filter Testbench

64

Figure 7.11: PFD+CP+Filter Testbench

Now create a new schematic and name it Tb vco. This will be the testbench schematic from which we will run all our simulations to test that the
VCO is functioning as expected. Insert vdc, gnd and two vdc from the
Component Library by navigating to the Analog Parts library. The initial
conditions to be set for VDD are same as shown in Figure 7.10(a), while for
the second vdc source the DC voltage should be set to a parametric variable
vctrl. Figure 7.12 shows what your testbench schematic should look like at
the end of this step.

Figure 7.12: VCO Testbench

Finally, create a new schematic and name it Tb div. This will be the
testbench schematic from which we will run all our simulations to test that
the VCO is functioning as expected. Insert vdc, gnd and a vpulse from
the Component Library by navigating to the Analog Parts library. The
initial conditions to be set for VDD are same as shown in Figure 7.10(a),
while for the second vpulse source they are shown in Figure 7.13. Figure
7.14 shows what your testbench schematic should look like at the end of this
step.

65

Figure 7.13: Vpulse configuration for Divider

Figure 7.14: Divider Testbench

66

7.4.5 Circuit Simulation Using Spectre

7.4.6 Launching ADE
1. We will simulate our circuits using Cadence Spectre Simulation engine.
Spectre is a variant of HSPICE developed by Cadence and provides
greater accuracy, speed and flexibility especially when dealing with
mixed signal circuits.
2. Make sure you first Check and Save your testbench schematic and
click on Launch ADE to open up the ADE window as shown in
Figure 7.15.
3. Click on Setup Simulator to make sure the Simulator is set to
Spectre as shown in Figure 7.15.

(a)

(b)

Figure 7.15: Simulating Circuit with ADE

67

4. Now click on Setup M odel Libraries to configure the Spectre model

files. Figure 7.16 shows the path you need to browse to in order to get
the correct model files for the PDK. You most likely would not need to
manually type the model file paths as Virtuoso should take care of it,
but in case you do the path is listed.

(a)

(b)

Figure 7.16: Configuring Model Files

7.4.7 PFD+CP+Filter ADE Setup

1. Transient analysis of any circuit is key to study the time domain behavior. We will simulate the PFD+CP+Filter testbench and observe
the resulting plots for UP, DN, signals to ensure that the PFD is
functioning properly.
68

2. In ADE window click on the AC,DC,Tran icon on the right pane.

Choose the tran simulation type, pick the stop time to be 100ns and
choose moderate in the Accuracy details.
3. Click on V ariables Copy F rom Cellview and insert the filter parameters as shown in Figure 7.17.
4. Click on the green Play button to run the simulation and the plots
should automatically pop up in a new output window. If you right click
on the name of the signal listed in the left panel, you can navigate to
options that change the thickness and color of the output waveform.
Additionally, right-clicking anywhere on the output window and navigating to Graph Properties allows you to alter the background color
as well.

Figure 7.17: PFD+CP+Loop-Filter Testbench ADE Window

5. Your final output waveform should look like that shown in Figure 7.18.
Notice that the UP,DN pulses are appropriately modulated as REF
and DIV signals diverge from one another; thus, the PFD is indeed
functioning correctly.

69

Figure 7.18: PFD Spectre Simulation Output

7.4.8 VCO ADE Setup

Recall from the earlier sections that for oscillators it is critical to perform
Transient as well as PSS simulations. We will therefore simulate the VCO
testbench and observe the resulting transient and PSS simulation outputs
for Vout signals to ensure that the VCO is functioning properly. Additionally, since the VCO is the major noise contributor to the PLL, we will also
characterize the VCO Phase-Noise by performing PNoise simulation on the
testbench.
1. In ADE window click on the AC,DC,Tran icon on the right pane.
Choose the tran simulation type, pick the stop time to be 4s and
choose moderate in the Accuracy details.
2. Click on V ariables Copy F rom Cellview and insert the PMOS,
NMOS width and vctrl parameters as shown in Figure 7.19.
3. Click on the green Play button to run the simulation, and the plots
should automatically pop up in a new output window. If you right-click
on the name of the signal listed in the left panel, you can navigate to
options that change the thickness and color of the output waveform.
Additionally, right-clicking anywhere on the output window and navigating to Graph Properties allows you to alter the background color
as well.
70

Figure 7.19: VCO Testbench ADE Window

4. Your final output waveform should look like that shown in Figure 7.20.
Notice that the output node voltage vout is oscillating thus the VCO
is indeed functioning correctly.

Figure 7.20: VCO Transient Simulation Output

5. For a VCO, a key figure-of-merit is the control voltage tuning range.

Thus, we have to perform a parametric analysis in order to observe
the change in frequency as well as KV CO as a function of Vctrl. In
order to do so in the ADE setup window click on T ools P arametric
Analysis and a window like Figure 7.21 should pop-up. Within the
parametric analysis window, when you double-click on the variable box,
a drop-down list will show up from which you should pick vctrl.
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Figure 7.21: Vctrl Parametric Analysis Setup

To run the parametric analysis, click on the Play within the ParametricAnalysis window. This setup is basically going to run the transient
oF rom
simulation TStepSize
times by varying the control-voltage input to the
VCO.
6. To plot frequency vs. Vctrl and KV CO vs. Vctrl we need to use the
Calculator tool in-built within ADE. Click on T ools Calculator.
The Calculator window as shown in Figure 7.22 will open up and within
it now you should select Vt from the toolbar. The schematic will
open up, so within the schematic select the vout node. From the
Function-Panel within the Calculator window choose the frequency
and average functions to make up the function shown in Figure 7.22.
Now go back to the ADE window, click on the right-pane and select
the Pick-Outputs button. A window will pop up so within it select
Get-Expression and name it freq. This will bring the expression you
just created in the Calculator so that you can plot it. Conversely, you
can also click on the plot button shown in the red-box in Figure 7.22
to plot the expression; however, doing so makes the title of plot look a
little too crammed.

72

Figure 7.22: ADE Calculator

7. Repeat the same steps as above to create an expression within the

calculator to compute the KV CO . Use the deriv function within the
Calculator Function Panel to do so. Finally, click on the Play button
within the ADE window to plot frequency vs. Vctrl and KV CO vs.
Vctrl curves. Your output should look like Figure 7.23.

Figure 7.23: Frequency vs. Vctrl and KV CO vs. Vctrl Simulation Plots

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The KV CO calculated in Figure 7.23 is the value used to calculate the

required charge-pump current as well as C1 and C2 values from the
loop-filter. In our case, the VCO output frequency is 1.675GHz with a
Vctrl=0.9V and a KV CO = 652.106MHz/V.
8. Now, in order to simulate the VCO Phase-Noise we need to perform
the PSS, PNoise simulations. For the PSS simulation, in the ADE
window click on the AC,DC,Tran icon on the right pane. Choose the
pss simulation type, pick the parameters using those shown in Figure
7.24(a). It is critical to note that the beat frequency here is the target
frequency of the VCO and the reason we have to check the oscillator
option and select vout, gnd terminals from the schematic is because
by default PSS simulation expects a differential output.
9. To run the PNoise simulation, in the ADE window click on the AC,DC,
Tran icon on the right pane. Choose the pss simulation type, pick the
parameters using those shown in Figure 7.24(b). Its critical to note that
the phase-noise in the VCO is only dominant in the low-pass thus we
limit our simulation frequency range to be from 1kHz to 10MHz as after
the 10MHz the phase-noise will not cause any significant degradation
to oscillator output performance. Note: To view the PNoise simulation
results in the main ADE window click on Results Direct P lot
M ain F orm at which a window like Figure 7.25. Choose Phase-Noise
and click on the Plot button.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 7.24: VCO PSS & Pnoise Simulation Setup

Figure 7.25: VCO Phase-Noise Simulation Plot Step

The output waveform for the simulated phase-noise will look like Figure
7.26. In our case, we find that the Phase-Noise at a 1MHz offset is
equal to -94.32dBc/Hz, which is very reasonable for a ring-oscillator
type single-ended VCO topology.
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Figure 7.26: VCO Phase-Noise Simulation Plot

7.4.9 Divider ADE Setup

1. We now simulate the divider testbench and observe the resulting plots
for IN, OUT, signals of the divider circuit to ensure its proper functionality.
2. In ADE window click on the AC,DC,Tran icon on the right pane.
Choose the tran simulation type, pick the stop time to be 100ns and
choose moderate in the Accuracy details.
3. Click on the green Play button to run the simulation and the plots
should automatically pop up in a new output window.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 7.27: Divider Spectre Simulation Output

4. Your final output waveform should resemble Figure 7.27. Notice that
each half-wave of the output pulse comprises of four half-pulses of the
input, meaning the period of the output pulse is one-eighth of the input
pulse period. Thus, our divider is functioning properly in that it divides
the input pulse frequency by 8 with a small setup-time delay of 209ps.
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7.4.10 Complete PLL Schematic and Testbench

1. Using the steps mentioned in the subsections above create new schematic
and save it as PLL.
2. Place the pfd, vco and div symbols in the schematic, connect the
components in together and generate a symbol for the full PLL schematic
as shown in Figure 7.28.

Figure 7.28: PLL Schematic

3. Create a new schematic and save it as Tb PLL. Design the testbench

schematic as shown in Figure 7.29.

Figure 7.29: PLL Testbench

4. In the PLL testbench choose the Vref using the Vpulse source within
analogLib and configure it as shown below in Figure 7.30.

78

Figure 7.30: Vpulse Configuration for PLL Testbench

7.4.11 PLL ADE Setup

Now that we have verified the functionality of each of the components of the
PLL at a transistor level, the final task is to characterize the PLL locking
behavior, overall phase-noise profile and jitter profile.
1. In ADE window click on the AC,DC,Tran icon on the right pane.
Choose the tran simulation type, pick the stop time to be 4s and
choose moderate in the Accuracy details.
2. Click on V ariables Copy F rom Cellview and insert the PMOS,
NMOS widths of VCO inverters, charge-pump output current, ICP ,
reference signal period, and the loop-filter parameters as shown in Figure 7.31.
79

3. Click on the green Play button to run the simulation and the plots
should automatically pop-up in a new output window.

Figure 7.31: PLL Testbench ADE Window

4. Your final output waveform should look like that shown in Figure 7.32.
Notice that the VCO input control voltage vctrl is essentially flat and
settled thus the PLL is in steady-state lock state.

Figure 7.32: PLL Settled Transient Simulation Output

If we zoom into a 50ns window we notice that there is a slight control voltage ripple, but the loop is approaching steady state lock point.
From Figure 7.33 the rippling behavior of vctrl can be seen to be
prominent for the first 10ns and then slowly decaying away as we approach 50ns time-frame.

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Figure 7.33: PLL Vctrl Voltage before Lock

5. Another method to verify that PLL is in steady-state locked condition

is to plot the output frequency versus time. Figure 7.34 shows that the
PLL achieves lock around 1s and remains locked to 1.6GHz output
frequency after that.

Figure 7.34: PLL Frequency Locking in Steady-State

To plot frequency we need to use the Calculator tool in-built within

ADE. Click on T ools Calculator. The Calculator window as shown
in Figure 7.22 will open up and within it now you should select Vt
from the toolbar. The schematic will open up, so within the schematic
select the vout node. From the Function-Panel within the Calculator window choose the freq function to plot the PLL output frequency
with respect to time. Once again, like in the case of the VCO frequency
vs. vctrl plot, go back to the ADE window, click on the right-pane and
select the Pick-Outputs button. A window will pop-up so within it select Get-Expression and name it freq. This will bring the expression
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you just created in the Calculator so that you can plot it.
6. Now, in order to simulate the PLL Phase-Noise we perform the PSS,
PNoise simulations. For the PSS simulation, in the ADE window click
on the AC,DC,Tran icon on the right pane. Choose the pss simulation type and pick the parameters using those shown in Figure 7.35(a).
Note that in this case the beat frequency will be the reference frequency
as that is the only fundamental input frequency to the PLL. Additionally, the reason we do not have to check the oscillator option and
select vout, gnd terminals from the schematic is that PLL is, as the
name suggests, not an oscillator.
7. To run the PNoise simulation, in the ADE window click on the AC,DC,
Tran icon on the right pane. Choose the pss simulation type, pick the
parameters using those shown in Figure 7.35(b). It is critical to note
that the phase-noise in the VCO is the dominant source of phase-noise
in the complete PLL, and since VCO noise is typically most prominent
at a 1MHz offset, we limit our simulation frequency range to be from
1kHz to 10MHz as after the 10MHz the phase-noise will not cause
any significant degradation to oscillator output performance. One key
difference between the PNoise setup and VCO is that now the phasenoise of interest is of the 8th relative harmonic to the fundamental
reference frequency because we have a divider ratio of 8 in our PLL.

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(a)

(b)

Figure 7.35: PLL PSS & Pnoise Simulation Setup

The output waveform for the simulated phase-noise will look like Figure
7.36. In our case, we find that the Phase-Noise at a 1MHz offset is
equal to -113.31dBc/Hz, which is very reasonable for an Integer-N clock
synthesizer PLL with an output frequency of 1.6GHz in steady-state.

83

Figure 7.36: PLL Phase-Noise Simulation Plot

8. Since clock generator circuits are responsible for generating the system
master-clock, the timing (deterministic) jitter as well as random jitter
are key figures-of-merit to minimize clock-induced timing errors during
transmission as well as reception of digital data bits. In order to characterize the deterministic timing jitter we plot the PLL eye diagram
for a small time-interval once the PLL is in lock condition. Similar
to the frequency measurement, we plot the eye diagram by exporting
the vout curve into Calculator and using the eyeDiagram function
as shown in Figure 7.37.

Figure 7.37: Eye Diagram Setup for PLL Output

In Figure 7.38 we see that the output voltage eye for the PLL has some
deterministic timing jitter associated with it.
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Figure 7.38: PLL Output Eye Diagram Plot

If we zoom-in to the plot, in the area of the vout rising-edge, and
place markers at points where the voltage passes 1.0V, we notice that
the deterministic timing jitter of our PLL as shown in Figure 7.39 is
5.62ps.

Figure 7.39: PLL Deterministic Jitter Plot

Finally, to calculate the random edge-to-edge jitter of our PLL we
need to re-run the PNoise simulation but this time with jitter. In
order to do so change the Noise-type in the PNoise setup shown in
Figure 7.35(b) to jitter. Once you have run the PNoise simulation
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with jitter, navigate to Results Direct P lot M ain F orm from

the main ADE window and a window like Figure 7.40 will pop up.
Choose Jee and pick an event-time at a point where PLL is in steadystate lock. You can also choose a specified BER. In modern links the
BER is typically 1012 , but we plot the jitter over various BER ranges
as shown in Figure 7.41.

Figure 7.40: PLL Random Jitter Plot Setup

Figure 7.41: PLL Random Jitter Plot

This concludes the characterization of the clock-generator circuit at a
transistor level and we have successfully verified its proper functionality.
86

CHAPTER 8
DISCUSSION

8.1 Conclusion
Overall, thus far in this thesis the foundational motivation for the use of
High-Speed Serial Links has been described, fundamentals of PLLs as well
as Charge-Pump PLLs have been covered, and an in-depth step-by-step tutorial on design/simulation of an on-chip clock synthesizer at both a behavioral level using Verilog-AMS and transistor level using Cadence Spectre
have been described. The designed PLL based clock-generator circuit described in Chapter 5 operates at an output frequency of 1.6GHz at lock with
-113dBc/Hz phase-noise, 5.62ps deterministic jitter and 5.27ps edge-to-edge
random jitter at a BER level of 1012 . Although many design improvements
can be made at the circuit level to optimize the phase noise and jitter performance of the clock-generator circuit, the motivation for this thesis was to
provide a tutorial style training manual for a student pursuing mixed-signal
IC design at the beginning of their graduate studies; thus, the circuits used
for the Integer-N synthesizer are very basic/standard. In this last chapter
to conclude the thesis, a summary of future design improvements for the
circuit designed/simulated in this thesis is outlined from both a system as
well as circuit architecture level. Lastly, an outline of the potential areas of
research to explore in the field of high-speed serial links design with a signal
integrity focus is presented. Often times when pursuing graduate work in
a diverse and mature field of Electrical and Computer Engineering such as
Mixed-Signal Circuit design, especially with a focus on Signal Integrity, a
new student needs some guidance and initial training to jump-start their careers. Therefore, the final section of this thesis concludes with a few words of
advice for new students pursuing this field of study to enable them in solving
unexplored areas within this field.

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8.2 Future Work

8.2.1 Design Improvements
The PLL based clock-generator circuit designed and simulated in this thesis
is very basic and is not optimized for optimal phase-noise and jitter performance for use as an on-chip clock signal in modern day high-speed serial links.
Such a simple circuit topology was however chosen in order to simplify the
complexity of the system and allow non-circuit designers, especially engineers
in the field of signal integrity, to understand the basics of the mixed-signal
circuit design/simulation flow using the ubiquitous tool like Cadence Virtuoso. The following list outlines some of the design changes that enhance the
speed as well as robustness by optimizing the phase-noise, jitter and power
consumption of the on-chip synthesizer:
1. Replace the NAND-PFD with other PFD topologies such as PassTransistor or Glitch-Latch Flip-Flop.
2. Implement an actual biasing current-sink in the Charge-Pump and
drive this sink by an external off-chip voltage signal. Additionally, implement a differential charge-pump to minimize the CP induced noise
and UP/DN current mismatch.
3. If using a ring-oscillator VCO topology, bias the circuit using a selfbiasing circuit to reduce the control voltage ripples as well as suppress
the supply-induced noise. Additionally, the oscillator should be made
differential instead of single-ended as this would greatly improve the
phase-noise and jitter performance [9].
4. Implement a TSPC Split-Output latch within the divider or a modified
variant of it to reduce the divider-induced delay which translates into
additional jitter at the output.
5. Consider implementing a LC-tank based VCO. Although it will increase
the area of the circuit, the phase noise and jitter performance will be
much better than even a differential ring-VCO design [10, 1].
6. Perform Monte Carlo analysis within Cadence ADE XL to optimize the
design over PVT corners to select the optimal sizing for the transistors.
88

7. The industry-wide trend is to move towards all-digital PLLs. Digital

PLLs offer many advantages over analog PLLs mainly in the fact that
they eliminate the need for an analog loop-filter as well as a chargepump, thereby saving area and power consumption. The disadvantage
currently however is that quantization noise associated with the Timeto-Digital Converter (TDC) inside a digital PLL severely degrades the
phase noise of the system. Thus, even the current state-of-the-art
DPLLs are no match in terms of spectral purity performance at highspeeds compared to the analog PLLs. However, with improvements
in transistor scaling and machine learning algorithmic noise-tolerance
methodologies in digital signal processing, as well as stochastically enhanced circuit design techniques, the future really lies in the study of
synthesizable DPLLs. Thus, this area of study should definitely be of
utmost priority while performing research on clocking circuit design for
high-speed serial link applications [11, 12].

8.2.2 Signal Integrity Focus

In the realm of signal integrity (SI) engineering, the principle of utmost
importance is to ensure robust signaling between a driver transmitter and a
receiver across a channel medium. As clock frequencies and the associated
data rates keep rising with technology scaling and advances in SFT while the
channel bandwidth remains roughly the same and package sizes rapidly scale
down, the need for superior SI designs in high-speed digital systems is at
an all-time high with demand only increasing in the upcoming years. Since
the off-chip I/O BWs become the major design bottleneck while demand for
low-power designs becomes ubiquitous, it is critical to study SI problems in
high-speed serial links.
Typical high-speed serial links are limited by the electrical PCB channels;
thus, being able to model all the effects of the channel is key to designing
robust systems. The skin-effect has become a major problem in PCB trace
channels as the high-frequency signals experience a large series resistance due
to current migration toward conductor outer surfaces, and traditional modeling techniques are no longer useful as they assume the metal surfaces are
perfectly smooth, whereas in reality there is a significant roughness present

89

which is actually random in nature. Furthermore, the frequency-dependent

dielectric-losses experienced along these PCB substrates are difficult to characterize due to lack of the required sophistication in measurement techniques
as well as statistical modeling. Measurement is a challenge because for accurate models the setup needs to be passive as well as causal, both of which
are very difficult to ensure in practice. Therefore, statistical modeling of the
substrate effects would be extremely valuable to enhance the understanding
of the channels used in high-speed interface systems. Recall that a backplane
or PCB trace can essentially be treated as a transmission line; thus, being
able to quantitatively characterize propagation delay, system characteristic
impedance, as well as discontinuities during high speed signaling will be very
valuable in easing out equalization requirements on both TX as well as RX
sides [13].
Overall link performance is analyzed in terms of the TX/RX timing jitter
as well as BER specifications. Since the channel is fixed, as mentioned earlier,
one prominent method to combat the jitter and ISI-inducing effects of the
channel is to perform equalization. Sophisticated TX pre-emphasis equalization and RX side adaptive DFE are vital to link designers as the data rates
approach the Tb/s ranges over the upcoming years while the off-chip I/O
BW remains about the same. Lastly, formulation of a robust statistical BER
analysis and time-domain empirical jittery analysis framework involving all
interference sources for any given HSSL will be key to fully characterizing the
non-idealities present in links today without the need to over/under design
at a circuit level.

8.2.3 Steps for New Students

When embarking on a journey to study and solve new problems in the field
of High-Speed Serial Link design, whether it be specifically in the area of
clocking circuits, equalization or signal integrity, it is critical to have strong
system-level understanding of the HSSL architecture. Once familiarized with
the system level basics of links, the student (if interested in circuit design)
should take ownership of a specific block within the overall link and focus on
optimizing it for low-power, high-speed applications. Conversely, students
interested in exploring signal integrity issues in HSSLs should familiarize

90

themselves with Behavioral modeling as well as basics of transistor-level design and simulation analysis so that they explore new HSSL architectures
that have high signal integrity even at multi-GHz to THz speeds.
Ideally, in order to make meaningful contributions in the field of HSSL
designs, a strong knowledge-base in fields of Integrated Circuits, Electromagnetics, RF/Microwave theory and Digital Signal Processing is key. Thus, at
the onset of their graduate career students performing research in the area
of robust, fast-signaling HSSLs should take the fundamental graduate-level
courses in areas of Digital IC Design, Analog IC Design, Phase-Locked Loop
Design, Electromagnetics and DSP. Lastly, ability to exercise the EDA tools
like Cadence Virtuoso, Agilent ADS, Ansys HFSS as well as programming
in MATLAB and Verilog are essential in order to gain hands-on experience
and perform rapid-prototyping of new research ideas.

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APPENDIX A
CADENCE VIRTUOSO INSTALLATION
GUIDE

A.1 Introduction
The motivation for this manual is to provide a step-by-step tutorial on installing Cadence Virtuoso IC 6.15 tools from scratch, configuring the environment and using the tool to design and simulate circuits. In this shorttutorial users are exposed to the complete steps involved in configuring their
machine to run the Cadence Virtuoso IC 6.15 design environment along with
its ancillary softwares, converting their host computer into a server, remotely
connecting to it and launching the Virtuoso simulator engine from the terminal window followed by a detailed guide to create their own custom circuits
and simulate them using the Cadence Spectre circuit simulator.
Cadence is an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) environment that integrates various circuit design and verification applications and tools (both
in-house proprietary as well as external third party vendor tools) in a single
framework allowing unified IC design and verification in a single environment.
The tools are generic and allow the designer to configure the environment
depending on the fabrication technology of choice by installing the appropriate PDK (Process-Design Kit).
This tutorial document is not intended to be a one-stop reference for all
the features available in Cadence Virtuoso Design Environment. Instead, it
is only meant to be a quick-start guide for circuit designers to be able to use
the EDA tool to effectively simulate their designs for quick prototyping and
verification of their designs.

92

A.2 Environment Setup

A.2.1 Installing Cadence Virtuoso
1. Cadence Virtuoso design tools only work on Linux OS and best on
RedHat based systems. In the scientific community a stable OS capable of running Cadence well is Scientific Linux which is an opensource Linux OS inspired from RedHat Enterprise Linux OS. Install
the SL 6.4 64-bit x86 version from [ http://ftp1.scientificlinux.
org/linux/scientific/6.4/x86_64/iso/ ]. Make sure you install
the SL-64-x86 64-2013-03-21-Everything-DVD1.iso and SL-64-x86 642013-03-21-Everything-DVD2.iso as it is the full enterprise version.
Note: If your machine is 32-bit you can also install the 32-bit version
from [ http://ftp1.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6.5/
i386/iso/http://ftp1.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6.
5/i386/iso/].
2. Once you have installed the OS, make a new directory under the path
/home/EEAPPS and name it C ADENCE INSTALL. In this tutorial
we will be installing Virtuoso IC6.15 suite, MMSIM 11.1 (required for
Spectre/Spectre-RF simulators), IUS8 (used for Verilog simulations in
Cadence Design Suite), HSPICE and a few PDKs (Process Design
Kit). Download the Cadence Virtuoso IC6.15 files (from your ftp file
sever) and store them in your computer under /home/EEAPPS/CADENCE INSTALL/IC615 folder. This folder is the location where you
will keep the raw installation files during installation.
Note: When you are downloading your Cadence Virtuoso files from
your ftp server location they will most likely be in tar file formats.
You will have 7 files for Base version and 8 files for the Hotfix version. First download them into your Downloads folder and then extract
the files one by one into the /home/EEAPPS/CADENCE INSTALL.
Make sure while you untar your files you untar each Base file into
the same folder and each Hotfix file into the same folder so at the
end of the whole process you will have two folders inside the CADENCE INSTALL folder named IC06.15.011 lnx86.Base and IC06.15.132615 lnx86.Hotfix . Although all the installation will be performed from

93

the Hotfix files it is very important to also have the Base files extracted as a path to them will be needed during the installation setup.
3. Before you start the installation process open up a terminal window
and type in su to make sure that you have root user privileges.
4. A key feature of Scientific Linux environment to note is that if you ever
have any missing packages that cause an error you just have to type
in yum install P ackageN ame in the terminal window. We will be
using this throughout the installation process when we encounter such
situations.
5. Install the following packages:
(a) yum install elfutils elfutils-libelf libXp
(b) yum install libXext.i686
(c) yum install libelf.so.1
(d) yum install libXrender.so.1
Note: You need these packages for InstallScape (Cadence Installation Wizard) to work.
6. Create a new directory by typing:
mkdir -p /home/EEAPPS/CADENCE INSTALL/IC615/ . Now move
the extracted Base and Hotfix folders to the IC6.15 folder you just
created.
7. In the terminal window browse to the following folder:cd /home/EEAPPS/CADENCE INSTALL/IC615/ IC06.15.132-615 lnx86.Hotfix/CDROM1
and then type in sh SETUP.SH to start the installation process [14].

94

Figure A.1: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 1

8. You will now see the following instructions so follow the steps indicated
below very carefully:
(a) Specify path of install directory [OR type [RETURN] to exit]:
/home/EEAPPS/IC615
(b) Directory /home/EEAPPS/IC615 does not exist. Create? [y/n]:
y
(c) Do you have InstallScape for lnx86 platform installed somewhere
[y/n]? n
(d) Do you want to install InstallScape for lnx86 [y/n]? y
(e) Type the path to InstallScape installation directory [(q to exit)]:
/home/Cadence/InstallScape
9. Now a window like Figure A.1 will pop up so follow the instructions
shown in it to browse into the correct folder that contains the installation files.
95

10. From this point onwards follow the instructions shown in Figures A.2
through A.14 very carefully to complete the installation process for
Virtuoso. Make sure you do exactly as shown in these figures to ensure
the software gets installed properly.
11. Once you reach the last step as shown in Figure A.14 hit Done.

Figure A.2: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 2

96

Figure A.3: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 3

Figure A.4: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 4

97

Figure A.5: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 5

Figure A.6: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 6

98

Figure A.7: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 7

Figure A.8: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 8

99

Figure A.9: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 9

Figure A.10: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 10

100

Figure A.11: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 11

Figure A.12: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 12

101

Figure A.13: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 13

Figure A.14: Installing Virtuoso from Installscape Step 14

102

A.2.2 Installing MMSIM (Spectre/SpectreRF/HSpice)

1. Now that you have installed virtuoso in order to actually use the
HSPICE or Spectre simulation engines you need to install the MMSIM package.
2. Download the MMSIM installation files from your ftp server and keep
the tar files in the Downloads folder. You will have 3 files for Base version and 3 files for the Hotfix version. Extract the files one by one into
the /home/EEAPPS/CADENCE INSTALL. Make sure that while you
untar your files you untar each Base file into the same folder and each
Hotfix file into the same folder so at the end of the whole process you
will have two folders inside the CADENCE INSTALL folder named
MMSIM11.10.214 lnx86.Base and MMSIM11.10.617 lnx86.Hotfix [14].
Although all the entire installation will be performed from the Hotfix
files it is very important to also have the Base files extracted as a
path to them will be needed during the installation setup just like you
did during Virtuoso installation.
3. Open up the terminal window and create a new directory inside the
CADENCE INSTALL folder by typing in mkdir -p /home/EEAAPS/CADENCE INSTALL/MMSIM11.1/ . Now move the extracted Base
and Hotfix folders to the MMSIM11.1 folder you just created.
4. In the terminal window browse to the following folder:
cd
/home/EEAPPS/CADENCE INSTALL/
MMSIM11.1/MMSIM11.10.617 lnx86.Hotfix/CDROM1 and then type
in sh SETUP.SH to start the installation process.
5. You will now see the following instructions so once again follow the
steps indicated below very carefully:
(a) Specify path of install directory [OR type [RETURN] to exit]:
/home/EEAPPS/MMSIM11.1
(b) Do you have InstallScape for lnx86 platform installed somewhere
[y/n]? y
(c) Type the path to InstallScape installation directory [(q to exit)]:
/home/Cadence/InstallScape
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6. Now a window like Figure A.15 will pop up so follow the instructions
shown in it to browse into the correct folder that contains the installation files.
7. From this point onwards follow the instructions shown in Figures A.16
through A.22 very carefully to complete the installation process for
Virtuoso. Make sure you do exactly as shown in these figures to ensure
the software gets installed properly.
8. Once you reach the last step as shown in Figure A.22 hit Done.

Figure A.15: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 1

104

Figure A.16: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 2

Figure A.17: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 3

105

Figure A.18: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 4

Figure A.19: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 5

106

Figure A.20: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 6

Figure A.21: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 7

107

Figure A.22: Installing MMSIM from Installscape Step 8

9. Now that you have installed both Virtuoso and MMSIM the most critical step is to configure the environment variables correctly. In order to
do so you will need to change your OSs shell to bash. To figure out the
current shell of your OS open up a terminal and type in echo $SHELL.
To change the shell to bash if it is not set by default type in chsh -s
/bin/bash. If you actually were successful in changing the shell type in
echo $SHELL, and you should get /bin/bash as an output.
10. Open up your current bash file by typing gedit .bashrc & in the terminal
window. Now replace the text with that of Section 2.3. Save the
updated file and close it.
11. In the terminal window type in source .bashrc to update your bash
settings.

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A.2.3 Installing a PDK

1. Download the PDK from your foundry vendor and extract the files in
a new directory called P DK under the path: /home/EEAPPS .
2. Create a working directory in your home folder as this will be the
directory where you will launch Virtuoso from and will store all your
files. For the purposes of this tutorial call your work directory ckt180
under your Documents folder.
3. Copy the cds.lib file from the PDK you installed above and open it up
in a text editor.
4. Make sure your cds.lib has the following items before you launch virtuoso. We have to do this to include the in-built libraries that come
with the Virtuoso software.
(a) SOFTINCLUDE /home/EEAPPS/IC615/share/cdssetup/cds.lib
(b) SOFTINCLUDE /home/EEAPPS/IUS08.20.015/tools/inca/files/cds.lib
(c) SOFTINCLUDE /home/EEAPPS/TSMC018/cds.lib
(d) DEFINE ahdlLib $CDSHOME/tools/dfII/samples/artist/ahdlLib
5. At this point Virtuoso is ready for launch so browse to your work
directory and type virtuoso &. See Figure A.23.

A.2.4 Remote Connections Setup

In order to remotely login to the Server from your machine follow the instructions provided below:
1. Windows OS Users:
(a) Install the SSH client MobaXterm[ http://mobaxterm.mobatek.
net/download-home-edition.html] depending on your preference.
(b) Install Xming X Server [ http://sourceforge.net/projects/
xming/ ] for Windows to allow X-forwarding during the SSH session. Also, install Xming-fonts from [ http://sourceforge.
109

net/projects/xming/files/Xming-fonts/]
Note: Without installing Xming you will not be able to open Virtuoso or for that matter any application with a GUI.
(c) Launch your SSH client, type ssh -X [email protected],
hit Enter. You will prompted to type in a password so type it in
and again hit Enter. Now you can follow the steps outlined in
Figure A.23.
2. Mac OSX Users:
(a) Install XQuartz 2.7.5 for Mac OSX if you are using OSX Mountain Lion or later. If you have an older OS then you will already
have X11 pre-installed in your system. Check your System Preferences to check whether X11 is turned on.
Note: Without installing XQuartz or enabling X11 (depending
upon your OSX version) you will not be able to open Virtuoso or
for that matter any application with a GUI.
(b) Launch your SSH client and type ssh -X [email protected],
hit Enter. You will prompted to type in a password so type it in
and again hit Enter. Now you can follow the steps outlined in
Figure A.23.
3. Linux OS Users:
(a) Launch Terminal and type ssh -X [email protected],
hit Enter. You will prompted to type in a password so type it in
and again hit Enter. Now you can follow the steps outlined in
Figure A.23.

Figure A.23: Launch Instructions for Virtuoso

110

A.2.5 Configuring Bash Environment

# . bashrc
# Source g l o b a l d e f i n i t i o n s
i f [ f / e t c / b a s h r c ] ; then
. / etc / bashrc
fi
# User s p e c i f i c a l i a s e s and f u n c t i o n
a l i a s mat=cd /home/ r i s h i / matlab ; matlab &
a l i a s c s c o p e =/home/EEAPPS/ Cscope / a i b i n / cscope
################# Hspice ###################
SYNOPSYS HOME=/home/EEAPPS
HSP HOME=$SYNOPSYS HOME/HSPICE
SCL HOME=$SYNOPSYS HOME/SCL
HSP BIN=$HSP HOME/ h s p i c e / bi n
SCL BIN=$SCL HOME/ l i n u x / bi n
export LM LICENSE FILE=/home/EEAPPS/HSPICE/ linmac . dat
export PATH=${HSP HOME}/ h s p i c e / bi n :$PATH
export PATH=/home/EEAPPS/ Cscope / a i b i n / :$PATH
################## IC ######################
export MMSIM ROOT=/home/EEAPPS/MMSIM
export OA HOME=/home/EEAPPS/ IC615 / oa
export CDSHOME=/home/EEAPPS/ IC615
export CDSDIR=/home/EEAPPS/ IC615
export CDS ROOT=/home/EEAPPS/ IC615
export CDS INST DIR=//home/EEAPPS/ IC615
export DD DONT DO OS LOCKS=SET
export CDS LIC FILE=5280 @cadence . w e b s t o r e . i l l i n o i s . edu
export CDS Netlisting Mode = Analog
e x p o r t PATH=${CDS INST DIR}/ t o o l s / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CDS INST DIR}/ t o o l s / d f I I / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CDS INST DIR}/ t o o l s / p l o t / b in :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CDS INST DIR}/ t o o l s / d r a c u l a / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CDS ROOT}/ t o o l s / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CDS ROOT}/ t o o l s / d f I I / b in :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CDS ROOT}/ t o o l s / d r a c u l a / bi n :$PATH
111

e x p o r t PATH=${CDS ROOT}/ t o o l s / p l o t / b in :$PATH

e x p o r t PATH=${CDS ROOT}/ t o o l s / i c c r a f t / b in :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=/home/EEAPPS/ I n s t a l l S c a p e / i s c a p e / b in :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${MMSIM ROOT}/ t o o l s / d f I I / b in :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${MMSIM ROOT}/ t o o l s / s p e c t r e / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${MMSIM ROOT}/ t o o l s / u l t r a s i m / b in :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${MMSIM ROOT}/ t o o l s / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t CDS AUTO 64BIT=ALL
e x p o r t CDS LOAD ENV=CSF
e x p o r t EDITOR=/u s r / bi n / g e d i t
################ IUS #######################
e x p o r t CADENCE CURR IUS=$SYNOPSYS HOME/ IUS08 . 2 0 . 0 1 5
e x p o r t PATH=${CADENCE CURR IUS}/ t o o l s . l n x 8 6 / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CADENCE CURR IUS}/ t o o l s / bi n :$PATH
e x p o r t PATH=${CADENCE CURR IUS}/ b i n :$PATH
################## MATLAB ###########
e x p o r t PATH=/home/MATLAB/R2013b/ bi n :$PATH

A.2.6 Creating a Library in Cadence Virtuoso

1. The first task after launching Virtuoso is to organize all your designs
into appropriate libraries. To view all the libraries in the current work
directory click on T ools LibraryM anager as outlined in Figure
A.24, and the Library Manager window will pop up as shown in Figure
A.25.
Note: If you want to manually add a library that you copied from
an external source into your Cadence work directory you would need
to edit the cds.lib file found in your work directory folder by opening
it in a text-editor.

112

Figure A.24: Launch Instructions for Library Manager

Figure A.25: Library Manager Window

2. To create a new library click on F ile N ew Library and name

the library as T estLib as highlighted in Figure A.26. After creating
the new library you need to specify the Technology File to be used
in your respective PDK. In our case we will Attach an existing technology library, specifically the tsmc18rf which corresponds to 180nm
CMOS process. Figure A.27 shows the steps involved in attaching the
appropriate technology file to a new library.
113

(a) Create New Library

(b) New Library Name

Figure A.26: Steps to Create New Library

(a)

(b)

Figure A.27: Attaching Tech File

Refer to Chapters 6 and 7 for full behavioral/circuit-level simulation
guide.
114

A.3 Common Troubleshooting Tips

Some of the most commonly recurring errors are discussed below along with
the possible solution to resolve them:
1. Often when working on a common server machine with multiple users
logging onto the same account, the cadence filesystems gets locked
preventing any edit operations on any of the files associated with the
given user. The error will resemble the following statement in the
terminal window if such an event occurs: *WARNING* file /home/rishi/CDS.log File is already locked by some other process. In order
to fix this problem navigate to your home directory. Note that the
home directory is not the directory from which virtuoso is launched,
instead it is its the parent directory. Delete any of the files of the form
CDS.log, CDS.log.1 and CDS.log.cdslck. After deleting these files
refresh Virtuoso by navigating to the Cadence Virtuoso Log window
and clicking on F ile Ref resh.
2. When sharing libraries among users within a server make sure you
add the library name in the cds.lib file contained in your cadence
launch directory. Additionally, make sure while copying the files, the
destination user has write/edit privileges as lack of the write permission
will limit edit capabilities within virtuoso.
3. During simulation of complex circuits the Cadence simulation folder
gets full and often causes the entire machine to hang. In order to
prevent this from happening periodically, delete the contents of the
simulation folder found within your Cadence launch directory.
4. Always save the one functional simulation setting by navigating to the
Session SaveState window within the ADE window. Make sure
you select Cellview as this would also save the simulation plots from
the last simulation, thereby saving some simulation time for future use.

115

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