
Data Sheet
August 1999
LG1600FXH Clock and Data Regenerator
3
Lucent Technologies Inc.
Theory of Operation 
(continued)
Consequently, the timing information that is present in 
the data needs to be extracted and a decision as to the 
value of each bit must be made. Both timing instant and 
decision levels are critical, since the economics of data 
transmission dictate the largest distance possible 
between transmitter and receiver. A practically closed 
data eye can therefore be expected at the output of the 
receiver, allowing only a small decision window.
An added complication in nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) sys-
tems is the absence of clock component in the data 
signal itself. Practical clock recovery circuits have used 
a combination of nonlinear processing to extract a 
spectral component at the clock frequency and narrow-
band filtering using a SAW filter or dielectric resonator. 
The relative bandwidth of such a filter must be on the 
order of a few tenths of a percent to minimize the data 
pattern dependence of the resulting clock. Temperature 
behavior of the passband characteristics, such as 
group delay, must be tightly matched to that of the data 
path. These extreme requirements make such a dis-
crete design very difficult to manufacture at Gbits/s 
data rates.
The LG1600FXH clock and data regenerator relies on 
phase-lock loop techniques, rather than passive filter-
ing. The filter properties of a PLL are determined at low 
frequencies where parasitic elements play only a minor 
roll and stability is easily maintained. Furthermore, the 
reference frequency is determined by the data rate 
itself, rather than by the physical properties of a band-
pass filter.
Although PLLs can eliminate some of the shortcomings 
of passive bandpass filters used in clock recovery cir-
cuits, care was taken in the design of the LG1600FXH 
to preserve desired properties such as linearity of the 
jitter characteristics. A linear jitter transfer makes it a lot 
easier for the system designer to predict the overall 
performance of a link.
As a result, the architecture chosen for the device is not 
basically different from the conventional clock recovery 
circuit. A transition detector extracts a pulse train from 
the incoming data signal which is used as a reference 
signal for a PLL. The transition pulse train can be seen 
as a clock signal that is modulated with the instanta-
neous transition density of the data signal. The PLL 
locks onto the frequency and phase of this pulse train 
and freewheels during times when transitions are 
absent. The LG1600FXH features dual phase detec-
tors; one driven by an in-phase clock which is also driv-
ing the decision circuit flip-flop, the other is driven by a 
quadrature clock. The phase detectors produce a zero 
output when their respective clocks are centered with 
respect to the transition pulses.
12-3226(F)r.3
Figure 3. Frequency and Phase Detector
For a transition pulse of half the width of the bit period, 
the timing diagram of Figure 4 shows how the in-phase 
clock ends up in the center of the data eye when the 
quadrature-phase detector output is forced to zero by 
the loop. The (patented) transition detector is com-
prised of an (active) circulator, a shorted stub, and an 
exclusive-OR gate. The circulator/stub combination 
produces a delayed version of the data. A transition at 
the input of the circuit results in an output pulse from 
the exclusive-OR gate whose width equals the return 
delay of the stub. The stub is tuned for a given bit rate 
and can be adjusted so that the in-phase clock is 
exactly centered in the error-free phase range of the 
retiming flip-flop.
12-3227(F)r.2
Figure 4. Timing Diagram
PDQ
PDI
LOGIC
TO FLIP-FLOP
FROM
VCO
90
°
0
°
TRANSITION
PULSE
DATA
CIRCULATOR
DELAYED
DATA
STUB
FPD OUT
90
°
0
°
TRANSITION
PULSE
DELAYED
DATA
DATA
1/2 T
1/4 T
CLOCK
CLOCK
T