The Voltage Controlled Ring Oscillator in a conventional PLL based system would normally have a control line connecting to one of the inverters of the ring oscillator. There is a difference between a control source and a supply source. The control is coming from the charge pump which ultimately relies on the phase detector. The phase detector compares the external clock and the ring oscillator and the voltage can be controlled going into the ring oscillator. Is it being controlled by the external clock, directly or indirectly. is that considered reliance? When looking at Dr. Subramanian's Markman tutorial (powerpt presentation and Markman transcript), he only speaks about how the CPU is clocked, although I only read Dr. S's Markman transcript portion once. Are you absolutely sure because I thought it was about clocking the CPU and the term "entire". Not page 74 of the Markman.