Patent Abstract:
A clock selector operative on two clocks operating on different domains and responsive to a SELECT input provides a transition from a first clock to a second clock, and from a second clock to a first clock with a dead zone therebetween. The delay is provided by a doublet register having a first register coupled to a second register, the two registers operative on one of the clock domains. Additionally, a clock selector is operative on two clocks which are each accompanied by a clock availability signal where the state machine provides a variety of states to create a dead zone between selections, and to bring the state machine to a known state until a clock signal is again available.

Full Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    The present invention relates to clock selection for communications systems having a sleep mode. In particular, the invention is directed to wireless communications systems having an accurate network clock, a low speed clock for a sleep mode, and a host clock for an operational mode. 
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]      FIG. 1A  shows a prior art communications system, which includes a System on a Chip (SoC)  110 , typically comprising baseband processing for a wireless communications system, which is coupled to an RF Front End  112  which accepts signals from antenna  113 , and performs the sequential operations of RF amplification, mixing to baseband using a local oscillator, and conversion to digital sampled signals using an analog to digital converter (ADC), and delivering these signals to the SoC  110  over interface  111 . A transmit stream may be generated by SoC  110 , which is provided to RF front end  112  as a baseband digital signal, which the RF front end  112  converts to an analog signal using a digital to analog converter (DAC). Thereafter, the analog signal is mixed to a modulation frequency, amplified, and transmitted to antenna  113 . The SoC  110  accepts a clock signal NET_CLK generated by an accurate network clock source  106 . Generating the baseband modulation signals requires a relatively accurate clock compared to the other operations of the SoC  110 , and a low frequency SLEEP_CLK is sourced by a sleep clock generator  104 . The SLEEP_CLK may be coupled to a power sequencer  114  such as for powering up the SOC  110  and RF front end  112  when periodic beacons are received. The SoC  110  may also receive a HOST_CLK from a host clock generator  108 , which is also coupled to an applications processor  102  through host interface  116 , which may be a synchronous interface according to a known standard such as Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI as described in www.pcisig.com), Universal Serial Bus (USB as described in www.usb.org), Secure Digital IO (SDIO as described in www.sdcard.org), or any host interface known for interconnecting an applications processor to a communications system through an interface. 
         [0003]    For battery powered devices, power saving modes are related to the useful time the device may be operated on a single charge. One prior art power saving mode uses a power sequencer  114 , which powers down various components of the system, which is shown as separated into components related to transmitting and receiving wireless signals PD 2  such as associated with the baseband interface  111  of the SoC  110 . For example, if there is no anticipated activity on baseband interface  111 , PD 2  may be asserted, thereby putting RF front end  112  into a powerdown state when no transmit or receive activity is anticipated, and PD 1  may be asserted when there is no anticipated data across the host interface  116 . The assertion of partial powerdown for power-consuming parts of a processing element is known as a “sleep mode”, and may involve operation at a lower clock rate, or partial or complete powerdown of the associated system. Crystal oscillators such as those used to generate the host clock  108  and network clock  106  tend to consume a large amount of power compared to low frequency sleep clock  104 , in part because the displacement currents generated by each clock transition in the oscillator as well as the circuitry the clock is delivered to are proportional to clock rate, such that for all other considerations being equal, a lowest rate clock tends to result in a lower power dissipation. 
         [0004]    One problem of power saving operations is the requirement for the SoC  110  to maintain any existing network connections, and create new connections as required, both operations which require the SoC  110  to come out of sleep mode periodically and check for any pending traffic to be received or transmitted before going back into a sleep mode, and to be able to do this in a manner which does not cause any network connections or requests to time out for failure to respond. In one prior art system, the sleep clock  104  operates a wake-up timer within power sequencer  114 , such that the SoC  110  and RF front end  112  are powered up to receive periodically transmitted signals such as beacons, and any required transmit frames are sent during these intervals. 
         [0005]    Outside of such wake-up intervals, if the communication SoC  110  does not have a clock, it will not be able to serve incoming requests  103  from the application processor  102 . In one prior art system, the SoC  110  indicates to the application processor  102  that it is entering a sleep mode, and the applications processor  102  uses a wakeup protocol with sequencer  114  to bring the system out of sleep mode when making a request  103 . In this system, the application processor  102  will queue requests and assert a powerup request to sequencer  114 . When the SOC  110  comes out of sleep mode and has clock signals available, it indicates to the application processor  102  through a handshake mechanism across interface  116  that the application processor  102  may start sending requests and other relevant events. 
         [0006]      FIG. 1B  shows the timing associated with this prior art wake-up method. Until request time  152 , only sleep clock  168  is active, and the host clock  164  and network clock  170  are powered down. After host request  152 , HOST_CLK  164  is in a shutdown state until Wakeup SoC is asserted  154 , where the HOST_CLK stabilizes during an initialization time, and at time  156 , the HOST_CLK is stabilized and the request is handled, with the network clock  170  applied thereafter  156 . After the network events are handled from time  156  to time  158 , host clock  164  enters a shutdown mode at time  158 . The network clock  170  may stay active after end of request handling at time  158  to time  160  to complete the processing of any transmit network traffic which is generated, and enters a sleep mode thereafter  160 . 
         [0007]    There are many drawbacks associated with the process of  FIGS. 1A and 1B . The latency in response from time  152  to time  154  followed by initialization until time  156  consumes additional time, during which interval the SOC has to be in a wake up mode prior to handling any actual requests, which also represents a power consumption inefficiency. The latency from time  152  to time  156  also results in reduced throughput if there are many such requests handled sequentially. Another inefficiency is that the applications processor  202  buffers the pending events without any of them being handled until the wake-up process from time  152  to time  156  is completed. Additionally, certain protocols such as Voice Over IP (VOIP) require immediate handling without the latency associated with wake-up protocols. 
       OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION 
       [0008]    A first object of this invention is a clock switching circuit for providing a glitch-free transition from one clock source to another clock source at a different frequency. 
         [0009]    A second object of the invention is a first and second doublet register, the first doublet register input coupled to a select input through an OR gate, the OR gate having another input coupled to the second doublet register output, an AND gate having one input coupled to the select input and the other input coupled to the first doublet register output, the output of the AND gate coupled to the input of the second doublet register input, and a clock output generated by the output of a second OR gate having inputs coupled to the outputs of a second AND gate and a third AND gate, the second AND gate coupled to a first clock source and the inverted output of the first doublet register, and second AND gate coupled to a second clock source and the output of the second doublet register, the first doublet register being clocked by the falling edge of the first clock and the second doublet register being clocked by the falling edge of the second clock. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0010]    A clock selection function accepts a first clock input, a second clock input, a clock select, and generates a selected clock output. A first and second doublet register is formed by two registers having a doublet input coupled to one register and a doublet output coupled to the other register output, with the remaining register output coupled to the remaining register input, both registers of the doublet clocked by the same clock input. The first doublet register input is coupled to the output of an OR gate, the OR gate having one input coupled to the select input, and the other OR gate input coupled to the second doublet output. The second doublet has an input coupled to the output of an AND gate, the AND gate having a first input coupled to the select input and the other input coupled to the output of the first doublet. The first doublet output is inverted and coupled to a second AND gate, with the other input of the second AND gate coupled to the first clock input. The second doublet output is coupled to an input of a third AND gate, with the third AND gate other input coupled to the second clock input. The outputs of the second AND gate and third AND gate our ORed together to form the clock output. 
         [0011]    In another embodiment of the invention for use when either of a HOST_CLK or a NET_CLK clock source is unavailable, as indicated by an associated HST_CLK_AVAIL or NETCLK_OFF input, respectively, a clock select state machine clocked by NET_CLK has a first input HCA formed from a doublet register clocked by NET_CLK and a second input NCO formed from a doublet register clocked by NET_CLK. The clock select state machine generates EN_HSTCLK output, which is ANDED with HST_CLK_AVAIL and fed to a first doublet register clocked by HOST_CLK to generate SEL_HSTCLK, which is ANDED with HOST_CLK and ORed with the ANDing of EN_NETCLK and NET_CLK. The state machine moves between an IDLE state where EN_NETCLK is enabled and EN_HSTCLK is not enabled, a SLEEP state where EN_NETCLK is not enabled and EN_HOSTCLK is enabled, and WAIT, where neither EN_NETCLK nor EN_HOSTCLK is enabled. The state transitions are IDLE to SLEEP when NCO is asserted, SLEEP to WAIT when NCO is not asserted, and WAIT to IDLE a programmable number of NET_CLK cycles after entering WAIT. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0012]      FIG. 1A  shows the block diagram for a prior art wireless system. 
           [0013]      FIG. 1B  shows a time diagram for sleep mode and active modes for the system of  FIG. 1A . 
           [0014]      FIG. 2A  shows the block diagram for a wireless signal processor having a clock selection for sleep mode. 
           [0015]      FIG. 2B  shows a time diagram for sleep mode and active modes for the system of  FIG. 2A . 
           [0016]      FIG. 3  shows a schematic diagram for a clock switching circuit with two available clocks. 
           [0017]      FIG. 4  shows the timing diagram for the switching circuit of  FIG. 3 . 
           [0018]      FIG. 5  shows a block diagram for a clock switching circuit with one available clock and another clock having a startup delay time. 
           [0019]      FIG. 6  shows the block diagram for an example clock selection for use in  FIG. 5 . 
           [0020]      FIG. 7  shows a state diagram for a controller for  FIG. 6 . 
           [0021]      FIG. 8  shows a timing diagram for the clock selector of  FIG. 6 . 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0022]      FIG. 2A  shows a wireless communications processor  200  including a wireless processor system on a chip (SOC)  208  coupled to an applications processor  202  which sends and receives data to the SOC  208  through a host interface  206 . The SOC  208  integrates all of the functions of the wireless system other than the front end components  234  described in  FIG. 1A , including ADC, DAC, mixers, amplifiers, and other functions required to modulate and demodulate from antenna  236  to baseband digital interface  232 . The wireless processor  208  includes a host interface  216  to an internal bus  222 , which bus is also coupled to peripherals  218 , a DMA controller  220 , processor  228 , memory  230 , an interface  226  to the front end  234 , and a sleep state machine  224 . System on a chip wireless processor  208  accepts a network clock  212  which has higher accuracy than host clock  204  or sleep clock  214 . During sleep mode, the sleep clock  214  is coupled to sleep state machine  224 , which may provide periodic wake-up signals to the processor  208 . Network clock  212  may be in a powerdown state, such as under control of the sleep state machine  224 , and during intervals when it is not important to transmit or receive wireless signals using the accurate but high power load network clock  212 , the wireless processor  208  may operate on host clock  212 , which is selected by selector  210  and delivered. The clock selector  210  is controlled by applications processor  208  such as through a request through the host interface  206 . The processor of  FIG. 2A  may operate in a sleep mode when there is no activity, or if there is no network activity, it can operate on HOST_CLK, and finally, when there is network traffic to receive or transmit, the wireless processor  208  can power the network clock and use this clock for wireless transmit and receive protocols. 
         [0023]      FIG. 2B  shows the time sequence of operation of  FIG. 2A  for a host request which initiates a transmit operation. The wireless processor  208  runs on HOST_CLK from time  250  until the arrival of a host request at time  252 , whereupon the processor clock  262  is switched from HOST_CLK to NET_CLK for the duration of time required to handle the request to time  256 , after which the HOST_CLK is selected by  210  and provided to processor  204 . 
         [0024]    In operation with the communications processor  200  of  FIG. 2 , the clock selector  210  keeps the wireless processor  204  and associated circuits such as network clock  212  and front end components  234  in a low power state. In a sleep mode state, the network clock  212  will be switched off and a sleep counter  224  coupled to sleep clock  214  will be maintained. The sleep counter  224  will wake up the SOC on a periodic basis to maintain existing network connections to remote stations coupled to antenna  236 . In case of a pending request from the host processor  202 , the wireless processor  208  will service this event by using HOST_CLK as CLK_OUT  238 . If there is a need to immediately  9  service the request, such as for a VOIP packet, the wireless processor  208  can interrupt the sleep state machine and enable the network clock oscillator  212 . Once the network clock  212  oscillator has stabilized, the sleep state machine can instruct the clock select  210  to switch over to the network_clock  212  source and service the event. 
         [0025]      FIG. 3  shows one example embodiment for the clock selector  210  of  FIG. 2A , suitable for the case where both HOST_CLK and NET_CLK provided to clock selector  210  are continuously present. The clock selector  300  accepts a first clock input CLK 1  and a second clock input CLK 2 , along with a SELECT input  302 . Registers  306  and  308  form a first doublet register  322  with an input coupled to first register  306  input, register  306  output coupled to register  308  input, and register  308  output forming the doublet register output. The first doublet register  322  is clocked with the negative edge of the first clock CLK 1 , shown with the convention for inversion as a inversion bubble at the clock input. Second doublet register  324  is similarly arranged, with first register  314  and second register  316  similarly configured with inverted clock for clocking the falling edge of second clock input CLK 2 . First doublet register  322  generates SEL_CLK 1  and second doublet register  324  generates SEL_CLK 2 , as will be described. OR gate  304  has one input coupled to the SEL select input  302  and the other input coupled to the second doublet  324  output SEL_CLK 1 . First AND gate  312  has one input coupled to SEL input  302  and the other input coupled to first doublet register output SEL_CLK 1 , with first AND gate output coupled to the input of second doublet register  322 . The first doublet register  322  output is also inverted and coupled to second AND gate  310 , with the remaining second AND gate input coupled to the first clock input. The second doublet register  324  output is coupled to an input of third AND gate  318 , which other AND gate input is coupled to the second clock input CLK 2 . Second OR gate  320  generates the selected clock output CLK_OUT  320  by performing an OR operation on the outputs of second AND gate  310  and third AND gate  318 . 
         [0026]      FIG. 4  shows the operation of the clock selection circuit of  FIG. 3 . First clock  350  may represent the clock waveform for a first clock such as the host clock ordinarily used for transferring requests from the host processor interface  206  of the wireless processor  204  of  FIG. 2A . Second clock input waveform  352  may represent the network clock required by the wireless processor  208  for wireless transmit and receive operations, although the power consumption for the higher frequency and higher power network clock is higher. In the first embodiment of the invention, the clock selection circuit may change from a sleep state with no clocks running to selecting a host clock for first processing requests, and then switching to the accurate network clock for transmitting or receiving wireless packets, as required by the clocking accuracy. For clarity of the example, CLK 1  is shown at a slightly lower frequency than CLK 2 , however in a typical system the two frequencies may be any frequencies suitable for clocking static registers as shown. When SEL waveform  354  is low, /SEL_CLK 1   356  and SEL_CLK 2   358  settle to LOW values, which cause gate  310  to enable first clock CLK 1  and disable second clock CLK 2 , thereby coupling CLK_OUT  320  to CLK 1  waveform  360 . When SEL  354  is asserted, /SEL_CLK 1  is asserted two negative CLK 1  edges later, and SEL_CLK 2   358  is asserted two clock edges after the assertion of /SEL_CLK 1 . During this interval shown as  364 , no output clock is generated. Upon the assertion of SEL_CLK 2   358 , CLK 2  is coupled to CLK_OUT  360 , as shown during interval  366 . 
         [0027]    As mentioned earlier, the clock select circuitry of  FIG. 3  is suitable for the case where CLK 1  and CLK 2  are both available during the transition from one clock source to the other clock source.  FIG. 5  shows a generalized clock selection  518  in the context of a wireless processor  506  where the HOST_CLK may not be available, as indicated by HST_CLK_AVAIL, and with a network clock NET_CLK, which is disabled by DIS_NETCLK and provided by sleep state machine  528  which generates NETCLK_OFF a stabilization time later, such that NETCLK_OFF is asserted to the state machine several cycles before and after DIS_NETCLK, such that a reliable and settled NET_CLK is available before and after NETCLK_OFF is asserted. Sleep clock  508  is a low frequency clock source which is continuously running and used by sleep state machine  528  to assert NETCLK_OFF during powerdown states, and to control powerup of the processor  506  during intervals such as beacons, when the wireless processor  506  needs to be ready to receive remote transmissions. The wireless processor  506  may include any other elements, including a bus  524  for interconnecting a processor  532  with memory  534 , interfaces  530  to the front end  512 , DMA controller  540 , peripherals  538 , and a host interface  536  to application processor  502  over an interface bus  504 , which may include a host processor request  516  indicating a pending request for wireless processor  506  response. 
         [0028]    In one embodiment of the invention as shown in  FIG. 5 , the application processor  502  provides data for one or more packets to be transmitted, and the related packet data is accepted and queued in a buffer of host interface  536 , using the host clock  520  to buffer these packets. The buffering of packets to be transmitted by the wireless processor  506  allows the application processor to complete the transfer operation and continue with other operations. After packets from the application processor  502  are queued into the SOC  506  such as by using the host clock  520  as the clock source, the SOC  506  may start a wakeup sequence whereby the network clock  508  is enabled and settles, after which the clock select  518  may switch to network clock for those parts of the system needing it. During this mode of the invention, packets are transferred from the applications processor when the HOST_CLK is available and the NET_CLK is not available. 
         [0029]    In another aspect of the invention, packets have been queued from the applications processor  502  for transmission, and the HOST_CLK is turned off by the applications processor. In this mode, the sleep state machine  528  requests the network clock NET_CLK  522  be taken out of disabled state such as by unasserting DIS_NETCLK, and the clock selection state machine  518  switches to NET_CLK when it is available, such as after HOST_CLK has been disabled. During this mode of operation, packets which were previously queued from the applications processor may be transmitted by the SOC  506  when the NET_CLK is available and the HOST_CLK is not available. 
         [0030]      FIG. 6  shows a block diagram for one embodiment of the clock selection  518  of  FIG. 5 . A HOST_CLK  602  is provided, such as by the host processor interface, which interface includes an indicator HST_CLK_AVAIL, which enables the selection of HST_CLK only when this clock source is available. HST_CLK_AVAIL is generated by logic in the Host Interface  536 . It is unasserted at the end of a data transaction on the host bus  504 , anticipating the removal of the Host Clock, and is asserted again when a fresh transaction starts on the host interface and the HOST_CLK is again active. Similarly, when asserted, NETCLK_OFF indicates that NET_CLK is not available, a power savings measure taken by the sleep state machine  528  of  FIG. 5 . First doublet register  632  is clocked on the negative edge of HOST_CLK, and each doublet register such as  632  has an input coupled to first register  634   a  with an output coupled to the input of second register  634   b,  whose output forms the doublet output. Clock selection state machine  622  generates EN_HSTCLK and EN_NETCLK from inputs HCA (host clock available HST_CLK_AVAIL  604  through doublet register  610 ) and NCO (net clock off from NETCLK_OFF through doublet register  614 ). The clock select state machine  622 , second doublet  610  and third doublet  614  are clocked on the negative edge of NET_CLK. 
         [0031]    Clock selection  518  of  FIG. 6  includes a first doublet register  632  clocked on the negative edge of HOST_CLK, the first doublet register  632  having an input coupled to the output of a first AND gate  606 , and the output of the first doublet register  632  generating SEL_HSTCLK and coupled to the input of a second AND gate  626 , the other input of which is coupled to HOST_CLK. A second doublet register input is coupled to HST_CLK_AVAIL, which is also coupled to an input of first AND gate  606 . Second doublet register  610  output generates HCA, which is coupled to a clock selection state machine, and generates EN_HSTCLK which is coupled to the other input of the first AND gate  606 . Third doublet register  614  input is coupled to NETCLK_OFF  612 , and third doublet register output generates NCO, which is also coupled to the input of the clock select state machine  622 . EN_NETCLK is generated by the clock select state machine, and is coupled to an input of third AND gate  624 , the other input of which is coupled to NETCLK  620 . An OR gate generates CLK_OUT from the output of the second AND gate and the output of the third AND gate. The clock select state machine, second doublet register, and third doublet register are clocked on the negative edge of NET_CLK. 
         [0032]    One embodiment of a clock select state machine suitable for use in  FIG. 6   622  is shown in  FIG. 7 , where the state machine generates outputs EN_NETCLK and EN_HOSTCLK, which are preferably synchronous outputs generated from state bits of the state machine, as is known in the art of state machine design. One possible set of states is IDLE  704 , for which only EN_NETCLK is asserted, transitioning to SLEEP  706  if NCO=1, indicating that the network clock is about to be disabled, and in SLEEP state, only EN_HOSTCLK is asserted. SLEEP state  706  transitions to the no clock WAIT state if network clock has been turned on as indicated by NCO=0. The WAIT state prevents the propagation of glitches on CLK_OUT in the condition where NCO becomes ‘0’ and around the same time HCA becomes ‘1’. A glitch can be created when FF  634   b  is 1 and EN_NETCLK goes ‘1’. Waiting for a fixed duration ensures that SEL_HSTCLK reaches ‘0’ before EN_NETCLK is asserted. The transition from WAIT  702  with both clocks disabled to IDLE  704  requires that N clock stages pass, with the first N- 1   710  in state WAIT, and the final Nth  712  in state IDLE  704 . 
         [0033]      FIG. 8  shows the timing diagram for the example embodiment described in  FIGS. 6 and 7 . NET_CLK  802  is enabled by NETCLK_OFF such that the network clock oscillator runs for a longer time before and after NETCLK_OFF is unasserted. The HOST_CLK  804  is unavailable at time  830 , as indicated by HST_CLK_AVAIL, and does not return until time  834 . Similarly, NET_CLK  804  is turned on at time  832  and off at time  836 . As can be seen from  FIG. 6 , HCA is a doublet delay from Host Clock Available  806 , and NCO is a doublet delay from NETCLK_OFF  808 . For simplicity, the diagram shows a two cycle delay, although it is understood that first doublet  632  is operative on HOST_CLK, which is not always present, and second doublet  610 , third doublet  614 , and clock select state machine  622  are operative on NET_CLK, which may similarly not be available during certain intervals, for which the state machine remains in a previous state until the NET_CLK becomes available again. It is generally desirable for the NET_CLK to be asserted before and after NETCLK_OFF sufficiently long enough for the state machine to reach state SLEEP, where HOST_CLK is generated. Additionally, it is desirable for HOST_CLK to be active for a sufficient time following HST_CLK_AVAIL for the state machine to reach state WAIT, where no clock is generated until NET_CLK is again active.

Technology Classification (CPC): 6