Noise-Induced Synchronization among Sub-RF CMOS Analog Oscillators for Skew-Free Clock Distribution

Akira UTAGAWA  Tetsuya ASAI  Tetsuya HIROSE  Yoshihito AMEMIYA  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences   Vol.E91-A   No.9   pp.2475-2481
Publication Date: 2008/09/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1337
DOI: 10.1093/ietfec/e91-a.9.2475
Print ISSN: 0916-8508
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Nonlinear Theory and its Applications)
Category: Electronic Circuits and Systems
Keyword: 
clock distribution,  synchronization,  nonlinear oscillators,  clock skew,  

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Summary: 
We present on-chip oscillator arrays synchronized by random noises, aiming at skew-free clock distribution on synchronous digital systems. Nakao et al. recently reported that independent neural oscillators can be synchronized by applying temporal random impulses to the oscillators [1],[2]. We regard neural oscillators as independent clock sources on LSIs; i.e., clock sources are distributed on LSIs, and they are forced to synchronize through the use of random noises. We designed neuron-based clock generators operating at sub-RF region (< 1 GHz) by modifying the original neuron model to a new model that is suitable for CMOS implementation with 0.25-µm CMOS parameters. Through circuit simulations, we demonstrate that i) the clock generators are certainly synchronized by pseudo-random noises and ii) clock generators exhibited phase-locked oscillations even if they had small device mismatches.