True Circuits

About True Circuits

True Circuits, Inc. (TCI) is a pioneer in the analog IP industry, first delivering PLL hard macros to customers in 1998. Over the past 14 years, TCI has established itself as the technology leader in high performance and general purpose timing IP for the semiconductor, systems and electronics industries. Under the leadership of John G. Maneatis, the world's foremost expert in PLL design, TCI develops and patents revolutionary design architectures that are known the world over. With a global customer base in the hundreds and production volumes in the billions, TCI has a long tradition of product and licensing excellence. At the core of TCI's success is our robust state-of-the-art circuits, methodical and proven design strategy, and close association with the world's leading fabs, IDMs and design services companies.

TCI's significant knowledge and experience with mixed-signal circuit design, advanced process technology, CAD and clocking applications have enabled it to develop the largest portfolio of standardized and silicon-proven PLL and DLL hard macros in the industry. This portfolio of highly differentiated timing IP spans nearly all performance points and features typically requested by ASIC, FPGA and SoC designers and each design type is available in a range of frequencies, multiplication factors, sizes and functions to meet the precise timing requirements for the latest DDR, SerDes, audio/video and other interface standards.

TCI ensures the right timing IP is developed for the right products and applications through its many partnerships with leading IP providers and design services companies whereby larger design solutions are thoroughly validated to minimize risk and improve time-to-market. TCI ensures product quality and performance by performing rigorous pre-silicon validation using a proprietary mixed-mode simulator and large server farm, and directly correlates these results with extensive parametric characterization of test chips over PVT using state-of-the-art Agilent test equipment and a highly automated testing process. TCI ensures each customer's success by carefully assessing their requirements before making a product recommendation and providing expert integration and testing support so the IP is implemented in the most optimal way.

True Circuits and GLOBALFOUNDRIES

TCI has been an active IP partner of GLOBALFOUNDRIES since 2005, when it began a close technical association with GLOBALFOUNDRIES' predecessor, Chartered Semiconductor. TCI has since ported its family of standard PLL and DLL hard macros to the GLOBALFOUNDRIES 180nm,130nm, 90nm, 65nm and 28nm processes, with 28nm PLL and DLL design kits soon to be qualified by GLOBALFOUNDRIES. TCI also intends to support the 40nm process if customers request it. TCI has developed test chips with GLOBALFOUNDRIES on the 130nm, 90nm and 65nm IP in each variant of each process and performed extensive parametric characterization in our silicon lab, and silicon test reports are available upon request. Characterization of the 28nm IP will be completed in early 2012 and silicon test reports will follow.

Over the years, TCI has delivered a wide variety of PLL and DLL IP to GLOBALFOUNDRIES customers. Whether your requirements are simple or highly complex, TCI can provide standard off-the-shelf or full custom timing IP to meet your exact needs. Please contact your GLOBALFOUNDRIES or TCI sales representatives to find out how your products can benefit from the quality, performance and availability of our industry leading timing IP.

Featured Products

General Purpose PLL

Designed as a wide range clock multiplier with deskew capability.
Delivers optimal jitter performance over all multiplication settings.
Low area and low power.
Suitable for system clock, DDR and general purpose applications.
Ideal for cost sensitive applications.

Clock Generator PLL

Designed as a very flexible clock multiplier capable of multiplying an input clock from 1 to 4096 with very small period jitter while operating at the highest possible bandwidth.
Delivers optimal jitter performance over all multiplication settings.
Supports fractional-N frequency multiplication.
Available with multi-phase outputs and with an I/O voltage regulator.
Ideal for system clock generation, SERDES and audio/video clock applications.

Spread Spectrum (fractional-N) PLL

Designed for PC, networking, and consumer-electronics applications where spread-spectrum clock sources are required to satisfy FCC requirements for peak RF spectral emissions.
Spreading rate and spreading amount are precisely adjustable to allow the designer to dial-in the desired characteristics.
14-bit fractional-N feedback divider with 3 bits of precise control.
Available with multi-phase outputs and with an I/O voltage regulator.

Deskew PLL

Designed to eliminate clock distribution latency in systems and individual chips.
Precisely aligns the clock distribution output with a reference clock.
Provides a zero-delay feedback divider and zero-skew divided clock outputs.

Low Bandwidth PLL

Designed to address the problem of excessive system clock jitter originating from lower-quality crystals.
An adjustable bandwidth allows the designer to dial-in the desired amount of period jitter filtering. The bandwidth is adjustable as a precise fraction of the reference frequency.
Feedback divider with 8 fractional bits allows the frequency to be set more precisely when the bandwidth is reduced.

DDR DLL

Designed for high-speed DDR style interface applications.
Generates precise delays that can be programmed from 0 to 360 degrees of the reference period.
Delays multiple periodic or aperiodic signals independent of voltage and temperature.
Delivers optimal jitter performance over a wide frequency range.
Available in flexible form factors for easier integration.

Multi Phase DLL

Designed for high-speed interface applications.
Generates precise multi-phase clocks directly from the reference clock.
Delivers optimal jitter performance over a wide frequency range.

IP Status

	65nm	90nm	130nm
AMS - DLL
AMS - PLL