Jitter spectrum analysis using continuous time interval analyzer (CTIA)

The advent of serial communication links in chip-to-chip and system-to-system applications has resulted in intense focus on jitter and BER testing methodologies. We present two techniques for measuring jitter spectral content using continuous time interval analyzers (CTIA) for characterization and test of clock signals and high-speed digital interfaces. First we describe the time interval error (TIE) based autocorrelation technique and show how it can provide better dynamic range than variance-based autocorrelation methods. Second, we introduce an alternative approach based on anti-aliasing feature of random sampling (RS). The RS approach provides significant gains in the frequency resolution and dynamic range while requiring less measurement time than the autocorrelation methods