An on-chip jitter measurement circuit with sub-picosecond resolution

Abstract

A novel circuit for accurate on-chip measurement of timing jitter is demonstrated. Measurements with the circuit show excellent reproduction of corresponding off-chip measurements made with an oscilloscope, and resolution measurements show the jitter resolution of the circuit to be better than 0.4 ps rms. The circuit is very compact, occupying 3200 μm 2 in a 0.13μm, 1.2V, CMOS technology, and operates up to 2.5 GHz in this technology. © 2005 IEEE.