A Radiation-Hardened Delay-Locked Loop Applied for Multiple Frequency Ranges

Abstract

A radiation-hardened delay-locked loop (DLL) applied for multiple frequency ranges is proposed in this paper. Novel and effective radiation-hardened techniques are applied in charge pump (CP) and voltage-controlled delay line (VCDL) to avoid inverted lock error and missing pulses error caused by single-event transient (SET). In order to ensure a wide operation frequency range, a frequency detection module is designed to detect the frequency of input signals and adjust the current source array of VCDL so as to change its delay time. Besides, an accelerate module is designed to reduce the lock time of DLL by providing an extra discharge current. According to the simulation results, the proposed DLL shows good performance when ion strikes occur and can work properly in a wide operation frequency range from 3.7[Formula: see text]GHz to 7.4[Formula: see text]GHz. Also, the proposed accelerate module helps to reduce lock time by 22.2%.