Digital-to-Time Converter and Its Application to Fractional-N Frequency Synthesis: Circuits from a Systems Perspective

This article provides a tutorial on digital-to-time converters (DTC), which are the core blocks of many electronic applications. Common DTC circuit topologies and major DTC timing errors are explained in detail. Various advanced DTC circuit design and calibration techniques are elaborated and demonstrated in the examples of using DTCs for high-performance CMOS fractional-N synthesizers. These techniques can be used to design DTCs for other applications as well.