Abstract: A CMOS inverter chain includes the alternating series connection of N- and P-inverters. An N-inverter is a conventional type of CMOS inverter employing an N-intermediate transistor between both the P- and the N-transistor; a P-inverter, however, is a CMOS inverter employing a P-intermediate transistor between both the P- and the N-transistor. The gates of the intermediate transistors are interconnected and controlled by the clock signal, whereas the inverter input is constituted by the interconnected gates of the P- and the N-transistor of each inverter. Such an inverter chain can be used, for example, as a digital pulse width discriminator, as a final position counter, as a circuit for compensating signal drop-outs in input pulses, or else for effecting ring oscillator synchronizations.

Abstract: To determine the phase difference between the edge of a pulse of a first clock signal and the edge of a pulse of a second clock signal with an integrable phase meter circuit, the second clock signal is fed through a frequency-divider circuit to the input of an unclocked delay line including m delay elements, and to a second register containing m cells, while the m cells of a first register are clocked by the first clock signal. The outputs of the kth register cells are compared in the kth XOR gate of a row of m XOR gates, so that, when the levels of these outputs are unlike, a logic 1 appears at the output of the kth gate. The phase is obtained at the n-bit output of a multiple adder adding the logic levels, the accuracy corresponding to m, which is preferably equal to 2.sup.n.