Analog CMOS circuit implementation of a pulse-coupled phase oscillator system and observation of synchronization phenomena

Abstract

Analog CMOS circuit implementation of a system of pulse-coupled phase oscillators is proposed. A CMOS circuit that achieves the dynamics of pulse-coupled oscillators has been designed and fabricated using a 0.25-µm CMOS technology. The proposed oscillator circuits with continuous-time operation interact with each other via a pulse at each firing time. Update of the oscillator state is achieved by integrating the phase sensitivity function with the pulse width time span. The phase sensitivity function is generated by the combination of binary functions, while the function consists of three-values {-1,0,1}. Introducing a zero-value span in the function leads to fast synchronization and robustness to parameter fluctuation due to LSI device mismatches, which facilitates VLSI implementation. Using the fabricated CMOS circuit, we have observed not only in- and anti-phase but also out-of-phase synchronization.