Based on the idea of bisection method, a new structure of All-Digital Phased-Locked Loop (ADPLL) with fast-locking is proposed. The structure and locking method are different from the traditional ADPLLs. The Control Circuit consists of frequency compare module, mode-adjust module and control module, which is responsible for adjusting the frequency control word of digital-controlled-oscillator (DCO) by Bisection method according to the result of the frequency compare between reference clock and restructure clock. With a high frequency cascade structure, the DCO achieves wide tuning range and high resolution. The proposed ADPLL was designed in SMIC 180 nm CMOS process. The measured results show a lock range of 640-to-1920 MHz with a 40 MHz reference frequency. The ADPLL core occupies 0.04 mm2, and the power consumption is 29.48 mW, with a 1.8 V supply. The longest locking time is 23 reference cycles, 575 ns, at 1.92 GHz. When the ADPLL operates at 1.28 GHz–1.6 GHz, the locking time is the shortest, only 9 reference cycles, 225 ns. Compared with the recent high-performance ADPLLs, our design shows advantages of small area, short locking time, and wide tuning range.
A low-power low-phase-noise wide-tuning-range K-band VCO in 0.18-µm CMOS