An All-Digital and Wide-Range Reference Clock Generator for Biotelemetry Applications

In this paper, an all-digital and low-power reference clock generator with cell-based design for biotelemetry applications is presented. The proposed clock generator employs a cascade-stage structure to achieve high resolution and wide range at the same time. Besides, based on the proposed Schmitt-trigger-based delay cell (STDC), hysteresis delay cell (HDC), and digitally controlled varactor (DCV), the proposed clock generator not only can provide high resolution, but also can generate low frequency clock signal with low power consumption and low circuit complexity as compared with conventional approaches. Simulation results show that the operation frequency range is from 9.9MHz to 823MHz, and the power consumption can be improved to 114μW (@10MHz) with 6.42ps resolution. In addition, the proposed clock generator can be implemented with standard cells, making it easily portable to different processes and very suitable for biomedical System-On-Chip (SoC) applications.