Patent ID: 7020227
Filing Date: 2006-03-28
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A clock data recovery circuit comprising: ai) a sampling circuit having data input terminals that receives a plurality of serial data signals with a known data rate, said serial data signals including a plurality of even data bits and a plurality of odd data bits, each of the even and odd data bits having an eye; aii) a first, second, third and fourth clock input terminals receiving four clock signals running at half said data rate, wherein the first clock signal having a phase that is aligned with the eyes of the even data bits, the second clock signal having a phase that is aligned with the eyes of the odd data bits, the third clock signal having a phase that is aligned with the odd-to-even data bit transitions, and the fourth clock signal having a phase that is aligned with the even-to-odd transition, said first, second, third and fourth sets of clock input being connected to a first, second, third and fourth sets of flip-flops, with the flip-flops in each set connected in series, and the output of each flip-flop from the first, second, third and fourth sets of flip-flops forming a first, second, third and fourth sets of parallel outputs; b) a re-sampling circuit connected to said sampling circuit having a clock input, a first, second, third and fourth sets of parallel data inputs, and a first and second sets of parallel data output terminals, wherein the clock input, which receives a clock signal that is running at a fraction of the speed of the clock signals in the sampler circuit, supplies clock signal inputs to a fifth and sixth sets of flip-flops, wherein said first, second, third and fourth sets of data inputs are connected to the first, second, third and fourth set of parallel data outputs from the sampler, wherein the first and second sets of inputs, which carry the even and odd data bits from the sampler, are interleaved together in an alternate manner to form a single set of inputs that feeds into the inputs of the fifth set of flip-flops, wherein the third and fourth sets of inputs, which carry the even and odd transitional bits from the sampler, are interleaved together in an alternate manner to form a set of inputs that feeds into the inputs of the sixth set of flip-flops, and wherein the output of the fifth set of flip-flops is connected to the first set of parallel data output terminals and the output of the sixth set of flip-flops is connected to the second set of parallel data output terminals; c) a decision circuit connected to said re-sampling circuit having a clock input, a first and second set of data input terminals, a set of comparators that compares the first set of data inputs with the second set of data inputs and exports the result in the form of leading and lagging signals through a set of output terminals, wherein the clock input shares the same clock to the re-sampling circuit, the first set of data input receives signals from the first set of data output from the re-sampling circuit and the second set of input receives signal from the second set of data output from the re-sampling circuit; d) an averaging circuit connected to said decision circuit having a digital counter of at least two bits that keeps track of the leading and lagging signals by adding and subtracting from a running total, wherein the digital counter is divided into a first and second sections, the first section containing the most significant bit and the second section containing the least significant bit, whereby the first section is used as an output; e) a divide-by-two phase interpolating circuit connected to said averaging circuit having at least one controlling input and a plurality of clock inputs and outputs and four clock signals that have a frequency half that of the input clock signals and each having a phase that is offset by 10 degrees from one another, wherein the controlling input is fed by the output of the averaging circuit and the plurality of clock inputs share a common frequency but having different phases, whereby the phase interpolating circuit uses the information in the controlling input to select a set of clock phase for output; and f) a divider circuit connected to said divide-by-2 phase interpolator that reduces the clock frequency of the output from the phase interpolating circuit and outputs the reduced clock signal to the re-sampling circuit and the averaging circuit.