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Reference spur due to PFD+Charge-pump cascading, featuring periodic (Tref) comparison between VCO feedback signal(with divider) and reference clock even though two periodic signals are phase-locked !
This phenomenon is mainly due to the mechanism of tri-state phase-frequency detector nature - generating UP/DN control signals to switch charge-pump though there is theoretically "zero phase error". Aforementioned fact causes charge-pump injects zero net-charge to loop-filter, so do not affect the phase acquisition function of PLL. However the switching actions of charging/discharging current sources will perturb the control voltage line and modulate VCO, degrading spectrum purity in terms of spurious tone relative to harmonics of reference frequency. |
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