PIC18F2455/2550/4255/4550 devices include a Phase
Locked Loop (PLL) circuit. This is provided specifically
for USB applications with lower speed oscillators and
can also be used as a microcontroller clock source.
The PLL is enabled in HSPLL, XTPLL, ECPLL and
ECPIO Oscillator modes. It is designed to produce a
fixed 96 MHz reference clock from a fixed 4 MHz input.
The output can then be divided and used for both the
USB and the microcontroller core clock. Because the
PLL has a fixed frequency input and output, there are
eight prescaling options to match the oscillator input
frequency to the PLL.
There is also a separate postscaler option for deriving
the microcontroller clock from the PLL. This allows the
USB peripheral and microcontroller to use the same
oscillator input and still operate at different clock
speeds. In contrast to the postscaler for XT, HS and EC
modes, the available options are 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and 1/6
of the PLL output.
The HSPLL, ECPLL and ECPIO modes make use of
the HS mode oscillator for frequencies up to 48 MHz.
The prescaler divides the oscillator input by up to 12 to
produce the 4 MHz drive for the PLL. The XTPLL mode
can only use an input frequency of 4 MHz which drives
the PLL directly.