Accurate and efficient method of jitter and noise separation and its application to ADC testing

Jitter is a crucial factor in high speed and high performance ADC testing. This paper proposes an efficient and accurate jitter estimation method based on one frequency measurement. Applying simple mathematical processing to the ADC output in time domain, the RMS of jitter and noise power are obtained. Furthermore, prior information of harmonics does not need to know before the processing. The algorithm is robust enough that non-harmonic spurs does not affect the estimation result. Using the proposed algorithm, specifications of SNR and ENOB of the ADC under test can be obtained without jitter effect. Simulation results of ADCs with different resolutions show the functionality and accuracy of the method.