Patent ID: 11879963
Assignee: STMICROELECTRONICS S.R.L.
Field: Basic communication processes (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 6:
7. A method of operating a tunable resonant circuit, comprising:
receiving an input control signal at a tap node between first and second inductances coupled in series between first and second nodes;
receiving a control word at a set of switched capacitances coupled between the first and second nodes, the set of switched capacitances including a plurality of capacitance units, each capacitance unit comprising a first capacitance for that capacitance unit coupled between the first node and a switch and a second capacitance for that capacitance unit coupled between the switch and the second node;
receiving the input control signal at inputs of a flash analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and operating the flash ADC to:
quantize an operating frequency range for an output signal produced between the first and second nodes as M·Δf, where M is an integer value ranging from 0 to N−1, where N is a number of intervals into which a frequency range for the output signal is divided, and where Δf is a resulting frequency step produced by the quantization; and
generate a value of M based upon the input control signal and outputting the control word to the switches of the plurality of capacitance units to close ones of those switches associated with the control word to thereby coarsely tune a frequency of the output signal; and

performing a fine continuous tuning of the frequency of the output signal by adjusting an adjustable capacitance coupled between the first and second nodes.