"Ultra-low power PLL design for energy-efficient wireless applications"

- Liu Yao-Hong, IMEC Holst Center

The radio transceivers typically dominate over 50% of the total power consumption in the autonomous wireless sensor nodes, and the fractional-N RF PLLs for frequency synthesis and modulation are one of the most power-consuming blocks. In order to achieve autonomous wireless sensing with limited battery energy, the PLL power consumption should be minimized to below 1mW, while maintaining low phase noise and spectral purity.
In this tutorial, the applications and the requirements of the ULP PLLs in wireless sensor networks will be addressed. The low-power design techniques and the state-of-the-art performance will be presented. The direct frequency modulation using PLL and its design considerations will be discussed.