DELAY CONTROL CIRCUIT AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING DELAYS IN A SEMICONDUCTOR ELEMENT

Abstract: A circuit (40) constructed in accordance with this inven­ tion includes a ring oscillator (25) to provide a signal which is dependent on the propagation delays of the inverters (33, 34, 35) comprising the ring oscillator, therefore the frequency of the ring oscillator is inversely dependent upon the propaga­ tion delays of the inverter comprising the ring oscillator. Means (37) are provided to determine the propagation delay introduced by the components in the ring oscillator by measuring the frequency of the output signal produced by the ring oscillator which provides a signal to a multiplexer (36) which selects among a number of present delay components (26) those components which are necessary to ensure that the propagation delay caused by the circuitry (not shown) connected to the input lead (21) of the circuit constructed in accordance with this invention plus the propagation delay introduced by the selectable delay ele­ ments is nearly a constant propagation delay.

Description: This invention relates to propagation delay control devices in logic circuitry and more specifically to methods and structures for maintaining constant time delays in semiconductor structure irrespective of processing factors and external environmental conditions such as temperature and power supply voltage. Generally, it is expected that a given digital signal will appear at a given location within a circuit during a particular period of time. For example, when reading a memory device such as a ROM, it is expected that data information will be provided on the data output leads within a given period of time after the receipt of appropriate addressing and enabling signals. In other words, after the receipt of the desired address to be read, and a chip enable or output enable signal, the data signals are expected to appear not sooner than T1 seconds thereafter, and not later than T2 seconds thereafter. The reason for this is that the circuitry which is to receive the data information is constructed in a manner which requires the data information to be provided during this time period. If this data information is provided before time T1, previous data may be lost. If the data is not provided during the period between time T1 and time T2, the data will not be received. If the data is continued to be provided after time T2, additional data, such as is provided by another memory device or other circuitry may be lost. In a similar manner, binary signals from any one of a number of circuits must appear at a selected node during a given period of time. Due to the variations in propagation delays caused by a number of factors, such as specific processing parameters, power supply voltage levels, ambient temperatures of the device, and the like, is oftentimes difficult or impossible to ensure that data is provided during the appropriate window of time. In many silicon semiconductor devices, the propagation delay of a gate can vary significantly depending on process variations, temperatures, and the like. US-A-3 996 481 discloses a FET load gate compensator employing feedback to control the load gate voltage, and holding the circuit delay and power dissipation of an integrated circuit nearly constant. The integrated circuit chip is provided with several stages of inverters which act as a delay sensor to simulate the delay of the operational circuit on the chip. The time delay of the delay sensor on the integrated circuit chip is compared with an external clock reference by a delay comparator. The delay comparator generates an output voltage which is used to adjust the load gate voltage until the delay in the delay sensor is equal to the clock reference. Since the same load gate voltage is distributed in the rest of the operational circuits in the integrated circuit chip, the delay times of these circuits will track with that of the delay sensor and thus also tend to be held constant. JP-A-56-107 630 abstract, discloses a delay time adjusting circuit wherein a single delay line comprising five gates are serially connected. The outputs of four of the five gates are connected to the respective inputs of a selecting circuit. A circuit constructed in accordance with this invention includes an input terminal for receiving a digital input signal and an output terminal for providing an output signal a predefined time after receipt of the input signal. A circuit constructed in accordance with this invention includes a ring oscillator to provide a signal whose frequency of oscillation is inversely dependent on the propagation delays of the gates forming the ring oscillator and thus indicative of the propagation delays of the remainder of the circuit. Means are provided to determine the propagation delay introduced by the components in the ring oscillator which provides a signal to a multiplexer which chooses a selected one of a plurality of delay lines, each providing a predefined propagation delay. The selected delay line provides a propagation delay which, when added to the propagation delay of digital circuitry connected to the input terminal, provides a constant propagation delay of the digital circuitry and the circuit constructed in accordance with this invention. Thus by selecting a delay time having a delay in inverse relationship to the delay of the additional circuitry, a relatively constant total propagation delay is provided regardless of the variations in propagation delay of the digital circuitry, for example due to variations in operating temperature or power supply voltage levels. Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a ring oscillator; Figs. 3a through 3c are voltage versus time waveforms provided by the ring oscillator of Fig. 2; Figs. 4a and 4b are voltage versus time waveforms of two of the signals provided in circuit 25 of Fig. 1; Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of an alternative embodiment of delay block 26 of Fig. 1; Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of controller 43 of Figure 1; and Fig. 7 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of a pulse generator constructured in accordance with the teachings of this invention. Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of the present invention. Input terminal 23-1 of circuit 40 is connected to output lead 21 of digital circuitry 20 having a potentially variable propagation delay. Delay block 26 includes a plurality of delay lines, one of which is selected by multiplexer 36. A particular delay line of delay block 26 is selected by multiplexer 36 so that a substantially constant propagation delay is provided between input terminal 19 of digital circuitry 20 and output terminal 39, regardless of the amount of propagation delay provided by digital circuitry 20. Although delay block 26 can in practice contain any number of delay lines, delay block 26 of Fig. 1 is shown having three such delay lines 42, 44, and 45. Ring oscillator 25 is a gated ring oscillator which provides to counter 37 an output signal having a frequency dependent upon the propagation delays of gates 33,34, and 35 forming ring oscillator 25. Generally, circuit 20 and circuit 40 are constructed in the same piece of semiconductor material, and thus share the same power supply and are at the same temperature, and thus the gate delays of gates 33, 34, and 35 are substantially equal and are equal to the propagation delays provided by the gates forming digital circuit 20 and the propogation delays provided by the gates of delay block 26. Counter 37 receives the output signal from ring oscillator 25 and provides an output signal on port 41 which is stored in latch 50 and which in turn causes multiplexer 36 to select a particular delay line within delay block 26 having a propagation delay which corresponds to that delay necessary to provide a fixed propagation delay between input lead 19 of digital circuitry 20 and output terminal 39. In response to a precise clock signal (typically an externally provided crystal based clock signal), control means 43 provides control signals which control the gating of ring oscillator 25, the enabling and resetting of counter 37, and the operation of latch 50. Circuit 40 has several phases during each cycle of its operation, as shown in Table I. During the first phase, the GATE ring oscillator signal goes high, thereby enabling ring oscillator 25 which begins to oscillate. Then, the ENABLE COUNTER signal goes high in order to enable counter 37, thereby causing counter 37 to count the pulses provided by ring oscillator 25. The GATE ring oscillator signal then goes low, thereby disabling ring oscillator 25, causing counter 37 to cease incrementing its count. The latch count signal then goes high in order to enable latch 50, thereby causing latch 50 to store the count provided by counter 37. Enable latch input terminal 13 is provided to allow coordination between delay compensation circuit 40 and digital circuitry 20. This coordination with digital circuitry 20 is necessary so that multiplexer 36 does not switch from a first delay element to a second delay element while a signal is propagating through the first delay element, thereby losing that signal. The CLEAR COUNTER signal then goes high causing counter 37 to be reset to zero. At this time, the cycle begins anew. Thus, periodically latch 50 is updated with a count provided by counter 37 which is representative of the frequency of oscillation of ring oscillator 25 which in turn is indicative of the propagation delays provided in the circuit, and thus the desired delay path of delay block 26. The count stored in latch 50 serves to control multiplexor 36 which selects the desired delay path in delay block 26. One example of a typical ring oscillator which functions in a similar fashion as ring oscillator 25 in Fig. 1 is shown in Fig. 2. The signals provided on leads 55, 56, and 57 are shown in the voltage versus time waveforms of Figs. 3a, 3b and 3c, respectively. When the signal on lead 55 changes from a logical 0 to a logical 1, after a certain propagation delay Δ (Fig. 3a) characteristic of inverter 52, inverter 52 causes the signal on lead 56 to change from a logical 1 to a logical 0. Similarly, after a propagation delay time Δ (Fig. 3b) characteristic of inverter 53, inverter 53 causes the signal on line 57 to change from a logical 0 to a logical 1. Consequently, the input signal on inverter 51 causes the output signal of inverter 51 to become a logical 0. In this manner, the signals in ring oscillator 50 continue to alternate between logical 1 and logical 0. Naturally, a greater number of inverters can be used in the ring oscillator, as long as the number of inverters is odd. Figs. 4a and 4b are voltage versus time diagrams of the signals on leads 24 and 22 of Fig. 1, respectively. When the gating signal on lead 24 is a logical 0, the output signal of NAND gate 33 is a logical 1. When the signal on lead 24 is a logical 1, NAND gate 33 functions as an inverter thereby causing ring oscillator 25 to oscillate. Thus, ring oscillator 25 provides the signal shown in Fig. 4. The pulses provided on output lead 22 of ring oscillator 25 while the signal on lead 24 is a logical 1 are counted by counter 37. Counter 37 (Figure 1) is shown as a bit counter for exemplary purposes only; counter 37 may have any number of bits depending upon the desired accuracy of measurement of the propagation delays in ring oscillator 25. If greater accuracy is necessary, either the frequency of the signal on lead 24 is reduced or the frequency of oscillation of ring oscillator 25 is increased, thereby allowing more cycles of ring oscillator 25 to be counted. Therefore, the time delays provided by the gates of ring oscillator 25, and thus of the of gates of circuit 20, is more accurately measured and counter 37 is designed with more than three bits. An alternative embodiment of delay block 26 of Figure 1 is shown in Figure 5. In Figure 5, delay block 26 is formed using a plurality of inverters placed in series, as shown. A plurality of taps are provided, each tap providing a version of the input signal provided on input lead 23-1 having a unique propagation delay. Thus, the signal provided on lead 26-1 will have no propagation delay, the signal provided on lead 26-2 will have a propagation delay equal to the propagation delay of 2 inverters, and the like. Multiplexor 36, under the control of the count stored in latch 50 (Fig. 1) selects an appropriate tap 26-1 through 26-4 in order to provide an output signal on output lead 36-1 having a desired propagation delay. Figure 6 shows a schematic diagram of one embodiment of controller 43 of Figure 1. In this embodiment, controller 41 includes four bit counter 61 which counts the externally supplied CLOCK signal CLK applied to input terminal 60. CLOCK signal 60 is a highly stable CLOCK, and is typically generated from a crystal controlled oscillator. As shown in Table II, when counter 61 reaches a count of 0010, gate 62-2 provides a logical 1 START RING OSCILLATOR signal which is applied to the S input terminal of RS flip flop 64, thus causing flip flop 64 to provide a logical 1 GATE RING OSCILLATOR output signal on lead 24. When counter 61 reaches a count of 0100, gate 62-1 provides logical 1 ENABLE COUNTER signal. When counter 61 reaches a count of 1100, gate 62-3 provides a logical 1 STOP RING OSCILLATOR signal which is applied to the R input lead of flip flop 64, thus causing the GATE RING OSCILLATOR signal on lead 24 to go low. When counter 61 reaches a count of 1110, gate 61-4 provides a logical 1 LATCH COUNT signal. When counter 61 reaches a count of 0000, gate 62-5 provides logical 1 CLEAR COUNTER signal. In this manner, a very simple four bit counter 61 and a handful of gates are utilized to construct controller 43 of Figure 1. Other embodiments of this invention may have other instructional correlations between counter values and instructions to counter 37. In one embodiment of this invention, the longest delay line of delay block 26 is chosen so that the delay introduced by the longest delay line is approximately equal to the difference between the longest propagation delay that may be introduced by digital circuit 20 and the shortest delay that may be introduced by digital circuit 20. Circuit 40 selects an appropriate delay line such that the output signal on output terminal 39 has a propagation delay between the input lead 19 of digital circuitry 20 to the output terminal 39 approximately equal to the longest potential delay introduced by digital circuit 20. Therefore, in accordance with the teachings of this invention, a circuit (such as digital circuit 20) is constructed which includes means for adding an additional propagation delay in order to insure that the total propagation delay is constant regardless of process variations in the integrated circuitry, temperature variations, power supply voltage, or any other factor which may affect the propagation delays of the circuit. Of importance, when inverters are used in delay block 26, each delay element must have an even number of inverters in order to provide the equivalent, not the inverse, of the signal provided by the circuit (not shown) connected to input terminal 21. This circuit is extremely useful in integrated circuitry where all components of an integrated circuit are subjected to the same process and temperature variations. Other delay elements, such as AND gates with input leads tied together may be used in place of inverters in delay block 26. The delay element need not be provided by a delay block similar to delay block 26. One method of selecting the delay indicated by counter 37 is to include a variable delay element with each gate. This can be accomplished by including several delay elements and a multiplexer in each logic gate of the circuit. Another method is selecting the amount of current supplied to the base of merged transistor logic (MTL, also known as integrated injection logic, I²L) gates thereby varying the propagation delay introduced by these gates (see Holt, Electronic Circuits : Digital and Analog , Figures 7-15 (1978)), which is hereby incorporated by reference). Figure 7 depicts one embodiment of a pulse generator constructed in accordance with the teachings of this invention. Pulse generator 70 of Figure 7 includes input terminal 71 for receiving an input signal defining when a pulse having a desired duration is to be provided on output terminal 77. A plurality of propagation delay paths 72, 73, and 74 are shown, although naturally any number of desired propagation delay paths can be used. Each delay line 72, 73, and 74 provides a unique propagation delay of the input signal applied to input terminal 71. The output leads of propagation delay means 72, 73, and 74 are applied to input leads of multiplexor 75 which, in response to control signals applied to control leads (not shown) selects a desired one of delay lines 72, 73, and 74. The signal selected by multiplexor 75 from the desired delay means is applied to one input lead of exclusive OR GATE 76. The other input lead of exclusive OR GATE 76 receives as its input signal the input signal applied to terminal 71. In this manner, exclusive OR GATE 76 provides an output pulse on output terminal 77 in response to each input signal applied to input terminal 71. In one embodiment of this invention, multiplexor 75 is controlled by a count value, such as the count value stored in latch 50 of Figure 1, thereby to ensure that the pulse width of the output pulse generated on output terminal 77 is substantially constant over wide variations in processing, temperature, power supply voltages, and the like. In another embodiment of this invetion, multiplexor 75 is controlled by control signals which allow the output pulse provided on output terminal 77 to have any one of a plurality of pulse widths, as desired. While this specification illustrates specific embodiments of this invention, it is not to be interpreted as limiting the scope of the invention. Many embodiments of this invention will become evident to those of ordinary skill in the art in light of the teachings of this specification. O₄ 0₃ 0₂ 0₁ Start Ring Oscillator 0 0 1 0 Enable Counter 0 1 0 0 Stop Ring Oscillator 1 1 0 0 Latch Count 1 1 1 0 Clear Counter 0 0 0 0

Claims: A propagation delay control circuit (40) for controlling propagation delays in a semiconductor element to be approximately a preselected value, wherein said control circuit (40) comprises: propagation delay means (26) having an adjustable propagation delay; means, independent of said propagation delay means, for continuously detecting a propagation delay in said semiconductor element through one or more gates forming an oscillator (25); and means (50) for adjusting said propagation delay of said propagation delay means, characterized in that: said propagation delay means (26) is adjustable by selecting one of a plurality of discrete propagation values offered by said propagation delay means; said means for continuously detecting a propagation delay in said semiconductor element comprises means (37, 43) for measuring the frequency of said oscillator (25) being contained within said semiconductor element, said frequency being solely dependent on said propagation delay through the gate or the gates forming said oscillator, and producing a discrete output signal in response to measuring said frequency; and said means (50) for adjusting said propagation delay of said propagation delay means adjusts said propagation delay in response to said output signal of said means (37, 43) for measuring the frequency of said oscillator, and controls said propagation delay means (26) to provide one of said discrete propagation delay values so as to adjust said propagation delay in said semiconductor element to be approximately a preselected value. A propagation delay control circuit (40) as in claim 1 wherein said oscillator (25) is characterized by: a first inverter (33 or 51) having an input lead, and having an output lead serving as an output lead of said oscillator; a second inverter (35 or 52) having an input lead connected to said output lead of said first inverter, and having an output lead; and a third inverter (34 or 53) having an input lead connected to said output lead of said second inverter, and an output lead connected to said input lead of said first inverter. A propagation delay control circuit (40) as in claim 1, wherein said propagation delay means (26) is characterized by: a plurality of propagation paths (42-45), each said propagation delay path having an associated propagation delay; and means (36) for selecting one of said plurality of propagation delay paths, said means for selecting being controlled in response to said output signal of said means (37, 43) for measuring the frequency of said oscillator. A propagation delay control circuit (40) as in claim 1, wherein said propagation delay means (26) comprises a plurality of N, where N is a positive integer, delay elements (42-45 or 72-74) for providing propagation delays, each delay element having an input terminal and an output lead; wherein said means for adjusting said propagation delay comprises a multiplexer means (36 or 75) having a plurality of N input leads each uniquely connected to said output lead of an associated one of said delay elements, an output lead connected to an output terminal (39) of said control circuit (40), and having a selector input port; and wherein said means for measuring the frequency of said oscillator (25) comprises a frequency detector means (37, 43) having an input lead connected to an ouput lead of said oscillator, and an output port connected to said selector input port, wherein said frequency detection means operates continuously and independently of said propagation delay means to provide an output signal which causes said multiplexer means to select one of said delay elements. A method for controlling the propagation delay of a signal path in a semiconductor element with the steps of continuously: detecting said propagation delay inherent in said semiconductor element independently from said signal path; and providing said signal path with a supplemental discrete propagation delay inherent in said semiconductor element, wherein said step of detecting comprises measuring the frequency of an oscillator which operates continuously and independently of said signal path in said semiconductor element and providing a discrete output signal for selecting one of a plurality of discrete supplemental propagation delays, wherein said propagation delay of said signal path is set to cause a total propagation delay through said semiconductor element to be approximately a predetermined value. The method for controlling the propagation delay of a signal path as in claim 5, further characterized in that said step of providing a supplemental propagation delay comprises selecting one of a plurality of additional propagation delay paths contained within said semiconductor element.

Inventors: CHAN, STEVEN S.
Applicants: LSI LOGIC CORPORATION
Application year: 1985
Main classification: H03K5
IPC codes: H03K19, H03K5, G06F1