An Embedded Core for Sub-Picosecond Timing Measurements

The continued market demand for GHz processors and high-capacity communication systems results in an increasing number of low-cost high volume ICs with multi-GHz clocks and/or multi-Gb/s serial communication interfaces. For such devices, timing specifications, e.g., jitter and skew, in the range of few picoseconds (RMS and/or p-p) are common. We describe an embedded core that allows such measurements. The core is small, functionally nonintrusive, and easily scalable for testing multiple circuits and signals on the chip. To reach the required sub-picosecond accuracy, we present a novel measurement and data processing technique, based on noise scaling. The core has a standard low-speed serial interface.