Series-connected mixer units raise phase detection sensitivity while avoiding saturation and keeping PLL noise low.
Sliding-average frequency measurement cuts VCO calibration time while preserving accuracy for fast, low-power PLL start-up.
Sliding-average frequency counting improves PLL calibration accuracy without long measurement time, enabling faster low-power start-up.
Capacitor charging and voltage comparison replace slow high-bit counting to speed wideband frequency matching with better accuracy.
Exponentially scaled clock phases let a multi-stage DLL phase detector reach fine lock resolution with fewer flip-flops and less false locking.