Implementing a two-modulus PLL divider in Altera Stratix II

I am trying to use one of the enhanced PLLs in an Altera Stratix II (EP2S60F1020C4) on the Altera DSP Development board in order to synthesize from a 100 MHz input clock frequencies new clock frequencies in the range 20-150 MHz. The critical bit is: I need a frequency resolution of not more than 0.01 Hz, which is obviously not feasible with the built-in 9-bit PLL dividers.

I am therefore trying to build a so-called "two-modulus prescaler" PLL. In other words, I would like to use the FPGA's internal logic in order to build a frequency divider that toggles between division by N and division by N-1. By adjusting the duty cycle of the divider toggling signal, I should be able to achieve output frequencies corresponding to high-resolution factional frequency multiplication factors. The toggling frequency should obviously be well above the PLL's loop filter bandwidth. I believe I can achieve the required divisor resolution with

32-bit counters.

Question:

- Has anyone here already done something similar and may be able to offer advice?

- I need to feed the fbin (feed-back input) pin of the PLL from the internal logic (i.e., the output of my Verilog-implemented two-modulus divider).

Is that possible at all in Stratix II without an external loop-back connection in hte PCB layout?

In other words, can the PLL feed-back input be driven by the internal logic, or are these only connected via a multiplexer to either the PLL phase detector or (exclusive or) the internal logic?

- If an external feed-back connection is necessary, is there any better or more elegant solution than using a jumper on one of the extension prototype connectors of the Stratix II EP2S60 DSP development board?

Any other suggestions for building such a high-resolution frequency synthesizer from a Stratix II are of course also welcome.

Thanks for any hints!

Markus

--
Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ || CB3 0FD, Great Britain
Reply to
Markus Kuhn
Loading thread data ...

Markus, I do not know much about Stratix PLLs ;-) But the traditional way to implement your function is called Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) aka Phase Accumulation. You build a long ( 34 bit?) accumulator and clock it at your 100 MHz (200 MHz would be better). The MSB is your output, and it easily has the requested frequency resolution. It also has a max jitter of one clock period (10 ns or 5 ns). If that is too much, you can use the PLL to reduce it. That's what I would do. Since the PLL's filter does not cover 0.01 Hz, you will have some frequency wander, but that is unavoidable in your case. If anybody knows a trick to avoid it or reduce it, I am all ears... Peter Alfke, Xilinx

Reply to
Peter Alfke

Peter,

I used a 48 bit DDS to create a clock for telecommunications that was accurate to 3.5E-15.

The occasional missing clock pulse is the only issue, as that is instantaeneous jitter.

Either the output bits of the DDS can feed a sine look up ROM to a D/A, and/or you can band pass filter the clock output from the msb - or the D/A, or you can drive the input of a PLL with the MSB, which is in effect a band pass filter.

Aust> Markus, I do not know much about Stratix PLLs ;-)

Reply to
austin

What's the spectrum of the output of a "two-modulus prescaler"?

What's the spectrum of a DDS?

How low do I have to make the PLL bandwidth if I want to filter out the junk? (Assume I run the DDS output through a PLL to filter out the steps.)

--
The suespammers.org mail server is located in California.  So are all my
other mailboxes.  Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Hal Murray

If you're referring to the MSB of the phase accumulator, then it has the same spectrum as the output of the dual modulus prescaler.

If implemented properly, they will have identical outputs.

That depends on the junk. The spectrum of the junk close to the carrier varies wildly with the ratio in the divider. It's best to work out the spectrum with a program.

I used to do it with a spreadsheet, but these days I use a C program (piped into Gnuplot).

Regards, Allan

Reply to
Allan Herriman

The output of a two-modulus prescaler (specifically "fractional-N synthesis") and the MSbit of a DDS (as opposed to a phase-to-sine lookup feeding a DAC) are the same thing - they produce the same spectra. The largest spurs are related to the closest integer ratio approximations to the output to reference clock ratio, many smaller spurs coming from mixing of those components and other slightly nonlinear effects of the ratios that produce these beat frequencies.

With no extra help, both approaches have phase steps in some situations that are too low to be filtered out in an analog PLL filter. Imagine an output frequency so close to a divide-by-12 that the divide-by-13 happens once a second. The result will be the same from the MSBit of the DDS and the accumulator for the divide by 12/13 control - a phase "slip" that has a ramp back to "steady state" controlled by the analog PLL filter.

The phase steps in DDS or fractional-N synthesis can be reduced by using the same techniques in sigma-delta converters but the control is a little more than a dual modulus. If there is a phase offset from "ideal" that is a ramp going from -0.5 Unit Intervals (UI) phase error to +0.5 UI of error, adding compensation to the output divider to push the phase error occasionally beyond the +/- 0.5 UI range at high enough frequency will allow the PLL's loop filter to average the compensation to directly match the offest from "ideal."

Different systems have different requirements for what is "good" quality results. Using the dithering just mentioned, there are often still noticeable spurs in the output spectrom though they won't look like much from the time domain. Many systems - such as analog - can't deal with the associated background tones and would gladly trade off a higher noise floor for lower spurs. In most of the stuff I want to deal with, I'm concerned about the time domain.

Reply to
John_H

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.