Multigig Technology Overview

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Rotary Clock Visualization, Philip Restle

Historical Perspective

Advancements in the technology of clocks and time keeping has a long history of driving economic progress. The earliest clocks were calendars, such as Stonehenge, through which ancient civilizations had learned to track the cyclic nature of the Earth, the Sun and the Moon. These calendars served vital functions such as knowing when to plant and harvest crops, when the rivers might flood and when to travel to the mountains to pick berries. Conventional clocks that tell time to within a few minutes became necessary when sailing ships needed a precise method of telling longitude, and much later for proper operation of the railroads. In the modern world of electronics, high-precision clocks are necessary for virtually any high-performance function.

Importance of Clocking in Electronics

In high performance digital applications such as microprocessors, graphics chips, and digital signal processing the clock signal can consume well over 50% of the total power dissipation of the chip. Indeed, the clock power is often the limiting element in the performance of the design.

In non-digital applications, the purity or precision of the clock can be the determining factor in overall system performance. A quick review of the large number of papers dealing with improvements to RF VCOs shows the importance that clocks play in wireless and wireline communications. In the mixed-signal world of Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs), the accuracy of the sampling moment (aperture jitter) directly limits the capability of this increasingly important electronic component.

RotaryWave™ Technology

Multigig has developed a fundamentally new approach to clocks and timing in electronics that leads to greatly improved product architectures. The RotaryWave™ clock has nearly ideal characteristics including:

High Precision - Low Noise

In high speed communications (whether wireless, copper or fiber optic based) the phase noise or jitter of the clock source determines to a great extent the quality and bandwidth of the communications channel. Multigig's RotaryWave™ clocks push past all alternate integrated circuit techniques to set new standards for phase noise and jitter.
Extreme Resolution

Using RotaryWave™ technology it is possible to generate hundreds and even thousands of precise phases of each clock period. This allows Multigig to design electronic circuits that can robustly operate with precise timing intervals as small as a picosecond.
Low Power

RotaryWave™ clock technology avoids dynamic power dissipation through recycling of charge. Thus, very large capacitive loads can be directly driven by the clock without the usual CV2F power dissipation common to all other accepted methods.
Natural Distribution Methods

RotaryWave™ clocks self-synchronize with adjacent RotaryWave™ clocks with extreme precision through the use of injection locking. Thus, a large grid of RotaryWave™ Clocks can be completely synchronized without utilizing any dedicated distribution mechanism. The RotaryClock thus becomes both the clock source and the distribution method.
Robust for Manufacturing

RotaryWave™ technology is a fundamental technique that works on all existing manufacturing processes including CMOS and other FET technologies, bipolar including SiGe, Silicon on Insulator and III-V technologies. Zero manufacturing changes are required to implement RotaryWave™ clocks into a design. Multigig has measured results on a large variety of CMOS and SiGe BiCMOS processes. Unlike most analog techniques, RotaryWave™ clocks scale well with advanced processes. Furthermore, this technology has excellent signal integrity with very robust tolerance to substrate, power supply and radiated noise.