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JitterUnderstanding it,
Measuring It, Eliminating It
Part 1: Jitter Fundamentals
By Johnnie Hancock
Agilent Technologies
I
n data communica-
Jitter is a key performance tions, once bit trans-
factor in high-speed data fer rates exceed one
communications. This gigabit-per-second, sim-
three-part series discusses ply dealing with 1s and
methods for measuring 0s is no longer sufficient.
jitter and presents tech- This situation is clearly
niques for its elimination the case with many of the
new data transfer stan-
dardsInfiniBand, PCI Express, 10-Gigabit Figure 1 Jitter can cause a receiver to mis-
Ethernet, Fibre-Channel, HyperTransport, interpret transmitted digital data.
RapidIO, and the like. Now, designers must
concern themselves with the true nature of a
circuit carrying binary information, realizing ently than the transmitter intended, causing a
that it is, in fact, an analog circuit. This means bit error, as depicted in Figure 1.
that many parametric issues have become Furthermore, as we will discuss in this and
more important than ever. future articles, jitter measurements can aid in
Among the parametric issues, jitter has discerning the various kinds of jitter which, in
risen to the top as one of the most significant turn, leads to their causes and to effectively
and is therefore having a huge impact on the diminishing their deleterious effect on circuit
design, operation, and proof of many of todays performance.
products. Jitter can be defined as the deviation of
This series of three articles is intended for the significant instances of a signal from their
engineers who design data transfer systems ideal location in time. To put it more simply,
and components operating at over one gigabit- jitter is how early or late a signal transition is
per-second and so must be concerned with the with reference to when it should transition. In
effects of jitter on their systems bit error rate a digital signal the significant instances are
(BER). This first article covers the fundamen- the transition (crossover) points. This applies
tal of jitter, the kinds of jitter, its causes, the whether the time reference is generated from
characteristics of individual jitter components the sampled data or is externally provided.
and some measurement vantage points. These definitions allow for a number of ways
of quantifying jitter, as noted next.
Why Measure Jitter?
Jitter isnt measured simply to create Quantifying Jitter
statistics, it is measured because jitter can Cycle-To-Cycle JitterThe time differ-
cause transmission errors. For if jitter results ences between successive periods of a signal.
in a signal being on the wrong side of the Period JitterAn RMS calculation of the
transition threshold at the sampling point, the difference of each period from a waveform
receiving circuit will interpret that bit differ- average.
Figure 2 An idealized eye diagram. Figure 3 An eye diagram with an irregular shape pro-
vides a wealth of information
Time Interval Error (TIE)The fundamental, intuitive view of jitter. It tled to its high or low value and, if
difference in time between the actual is a composite view of all the bit peri- sampled here, is least likely to result
threshold crossing and the expected ods of a captured waveform superim- in a bit error.
transition point (or derived clock posed upon each other. In other words,
edge). The deviations in time use the waveform trajectory from the start Sources of Jitter
either the actual transmitter clock or of period 2 to the start of period 3 is Before examining the eye diagram
a reconstruction of it from the sam- overlaid on the trajectory from the with jitter effects, lets review the
pled data set and take the form of start of period 1 to the start of period sources of jitter. Jitter on a signal will
instantaneous phase variations for 2, and so on, for all bit periods. exhibit different characteristics
each bit period of the waveform cap- Shown in Figure 2 is an idealized depending on its causes. Thus, cate-
tured. Incidentally, this representa- eye diagram, with very smooth and gorizing the sources of jitter is impor-
tion of jitter is of most interest for symmetrical transitions at the left tant. The primary phenomena that
current standards. and right crossing points. A large, cause jitter are listed below:
wide-open eye in the center shows
How an Eye Diagram Portrays the ideal location (marked by an x) 1. System phenomena
Jitter Intuitively for sampling each bit. At this sample These are effects on a signal that
An eye diagram provides the most point the waveform should have set- result from the characteristics of its
being a digital system in an analog
environment. Examples of these sys-
tem-related sources include:
2. Data-dependent phenomena
These are patterns or other char-
acteristics of the data being trans-
ferred that affect the net jitter arriv-
ing in the receiver. Data-dependent
jitter sources include:
Intersymbol interference
Duty-cycle distortion
Pseudorandom, bit-sequence peri-
odicity
3. Random noise phenomena fied by the phase error function j(t),
These are phenomena that ran- is the sum of the deterministic and
domly introduce noise in a system. random jitter components affecting
These sources include: the signal:
(FFT) of the TIE data. The FFT has much less resolution
than the low-level phase-noise view, but is an excellent
method of viewing high-level phenomena quickly and
easily.
Part 2 of this series will cover the selection of instru-
ments for jitter measurements, jitter measurements at
high data rates, and issues that are essential in assuring
the accuracy of jitter measurements.
References
1. Measuring Jitter in Digital Systems, Application
Note 1448-1, available at www.agilent.com
2. Jitter Solutions for Telecom, Enterprise, and Digital
Designs, Product Note 5988-9592EN, available at
www.agilent.com
Figure 6. Intrinsic jitter spectrum.
Note
Unit IntervalBy representing jitter in terms of
design has to jitter. And of course, the closer these edges phase perturbation only, it is possible to consider different
become, the less margin is available. These edges are domains for analysis. In mathematical terms, the phase
directly related to the tails of the Gaussian functions error (advance or delay) is generalized with the function
derived from TIE histograms. The bathtub plot can also j(t), so the equation for a pulsed signal affected by jitter
be used to separate random and deterministic jitter and becomes:
determine the sigma of the random component, as
described in Reference [1]. S(t) = P[2fd t + j(t)]
Frequency-Domain Jitter Vantage Points where P denotes a sequence of periodic pulses and fd is
Viewing jitter in the frequency domain is yet another the data-rate frequency.
way to analyze its sources. Deterministic jitter sources This leads to mathematically-equivalent expressions
appear as line spectra in the frequency domain. This fre- for jitter. Since the argument of the function is in radians,
quency-domain view is provided by phase noise or jitter dividing (peak or rms phase) by 2 expresses jitter in
spectrum analysis and relates phase noise or jitter-ver- terms of either the unit interval (UI), or bit period (for the
sus-frequency offset from a carrier or clock. pulses):
Phase-noise measurements yield the most accurate
appraisals of jitter due to effective oversampling and J(UI) = /2
bandwidth control in measurement. They provide invalu-
able insights into a designparticularly for phase-locked- The Unit Interval expression J(UI) is useful because it
loop or crystal oscillator designsand readily identify provides an immediate comparison with the bit period
deterministic jitter due to spurs. Such measurements are and a consistent comparison of jitter between one data
helpful for optimizing clock recovery circuits and discov- rate or standard and another. Dividing the jitter in unit
ering internal generators of spurs and noise. intervals by the frequency of the pulse (or multiplying by
Phase-noise measurements can also be integrated the bit period) yields the jitter in units of time:
over a specific bandwidth to yield total integrated jitter,
although this is not directly convertible to peak-to-peak J(t) = /2fd
jitter as specified for data communications standards.
Shown in Figure 6 is an intrinsic jitter spectrum of a Author Information
phase-locked loop. Noise peaking occurs at a 2 kHz offset. Johnnie Hancock is a Signal Integrity Applications
There are also frequency lines that identify deterministic Engineer within Agilent Technologies Electronic Products
jitter sources. These lines, ranging from 60 Hz to approx- Group. He is resposible for worldwide application support
imately 800 Hz, are power-line spurs. Frequency lines evi- activities for Agilents high-performance digitizing oscillo-
dent in the range of 2 to 7 MHz are most likely to be clock- scopes. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering from
reference-induced spurs, causing deterministic jitter. the University of South Florida and he holds a patent on
Another method of obtaining a frequency-domain digital oscilloscope amplifier calibration. He can be
viewpoint of jitter is to take a fast Fourier transform reached at johnnie_hancock@agilent.com