Basics of Phase Noise and Jitter

Asad Abidi

University of California, Los Angeles

Electrical Engineering Department

IEEE SSCS Chapter, Toronto: April 1, 2011

1 / 27
What is Phase Noise?

I Everyone talks of phase noise ...

I ... but how many can define it?
I How is it different from voltage or current noise? What do we
measure, when we measure phase noise? Do we have phase meters?
I What is the connection between phase noise and jitter ?
I Are there IEEE standards that define these quantities?
I For all these reasons, we must start with some basics of signal theory

2 / 27
Phase Noise
I Point rotates around the circle with non-uniform angular velocity
(i.e. varying frequency)
I Traces unequal phases per unit time
I Phase and frequency are of course related (t ) = ddt
I Phase defines a trajectory versus time (t), whose variance around
the noiseless straight line trajectory grows
R proportionally with
elapsed time. This is because (t ) = (t )dt
I Nevertheless is stationary, and has a well-defined power spectral
density S (f )
I In this presentation, we will see how to get to S (f )

8
6
4
2
T 2T 3T t
Figure: Oscillation as a rotating point Figure: Phase Noise Trajectory
on a circle
3 / 27
What Causes Phase Noise in an Oscillator?
I There are multiple sources of voltage and
current noise in an oscillator circuit 2fB
I Noise sources collectively pull the
free-running oscillators frequency, through
injection locking
f0
I This leads to a Lorentzian spectrum around the oscillation frequency
f0 , whose width fB is set by the strength of the total RMS noise
(voltage) relative to the amplitude (voltage) of oscillation A
A2 fB
S (f ) =
fB2 + (f f0 )2
so that, by definition of spectral density, the integrated power under
the Lorentzian is equal to the mean-square voltage of oscillation
Z
A2
S (f )df =
0 2
I We can refer to the spectral linewidth of the oscillation, which
depends on fB and is a measure of phase noise
4 / 27
Specifying Phase Noise
I In wireless communications, because of how a mixer convolves the
skirts of the Lorentzian with a strong unwanted signal (reciprocal
mixing ), we concern ourselves with these skirts at offset frequencies
fm around f0 , with fm >> fB in almost all practical cases.
I These skirts are defined in units of dBc/Hz as L(fm ) across a 1 Hz
bandwidth, normalized to the mean-square oscillation voltage:
2 fB
L(fm ) =
fm2
I If fB < 1 Hz, then at sufficiently small offsets fm , L(fm ) is > 0
dBc/Hz

ABL

fm (fm)ABL

ffLO fLO f

Figure: Reciprocal mixing of phase noise by blocking signal 5 / 27

I Since measured spectral densities are single-sided, it follows that

L(fm ) = 12 S (fm )

S(fm)

L(fm)

fm
0

Figure: Definition of Single-sided Phase Noise

6 / 27
Phase Noise is Equivalent to a Voltage Noise

I We could look at differences between actual phase (t ) and ideal

phase 2f0 t, and from that calculate the spectral density S (f )
I But how do you measure S ?
I Use phase detector, and compare with a reference phase
I Or recognize that phase fluctuations in a sinewave correspond to
voltage fluctuations; AM sidebands and PM sidebands at offset
frequency fm from average oscillation frequency
aAM fm
A
1 2
a
aPM cos (m t )
2 2 aPM 1
(t ) '
A
AM +fm '
A2
S (fm ) ' Sa (fm )
A2 PM

fm +fm
A
aPM A aPM

7 / 27
 A
aAM
+fm
an
+ fm
fm +fm Ac
1
2 a AM +fm
A
aPM 1
2 a AM fm
- fm aAM aPM
Figure: Phasors showing Figure: Phasors showing aPM aAM
PM AM
Figure: Decomposing
single added tone into
AM and PM
Ae j 0 t + 21 aAM e j (0 +m )t + aAM e j ( 0 m )t


x (t ) = Re 1 j (0 +m )t j (0 m )t


+ 2 aPM e aPM e

= Re e j 0 t A + Re aAM e j m t + jIm aPM e j m t




This resembles the description of modulated carrier in terms of the

complex analytical function (t ) = u (t ) + jv (t ):
x (t ) = Re (t )e j 0 t
 
8 / 27
Measuring Phase Noise

Noisy oscillation is described by

x (t ) = Re (u (t ) + jv (t )) e j 0 t
 

u (t ) = A + Re[aAM e j m t ]
v (t ) = Im[aPM e j m t ]
Therefore,
x (t ) = u (t ) cos(0 t ) v (t ) sin(0 t )

This shows that the AM and PM components are modulated on

quadrature carriers, and share the same bandwidth. PM component,
v (t ), can now be separated in a number of ways using synchronous or
complex downconversion.

9 / 27
PLL Based Measurement

DUT

Ref Spectrum
Analysis

Narrowband
PLL

Mix with pure VCO output in quadrature, and then lowpass filter:
 
x (t ) sin(0 t ) = 4j1 (t )e j 0 t + (t )e j 0 t e j 0 t e j 0 t


 
= 4j1 (t ) (t ) + . . . = 21 v (t ) + . . . = aPM sin(m t ) + . . .

10 / 27
Delay line discriminator

Spectrum
DUT
T Analysis

Delay oscillator output by T , and mix with itself. Now both inputs to
mixer contain PM, one delayed.
h  i
vout = Re (u (t ) + jv (t )) e j 0 t Re 1 + j v (tAT ) e j 0 (t T )
 
   
= u (t ) + v (t )vA(t T ) cos 0 T v (t ) u (t )vA(t T ) sin 0 T + . . .

Now if we set 0 T = /2, 3/2, 5/2, . . ., then

   
vout = v (t ) u(t )vA(t T ) ' v (t ) Av (tAT ) = (v (t ) v (t T ))

Svout (fm ) = Sv (fm )sin2 ( 21 m T ) ' (fm T )2 Sv (fm )

Since Sv (fm ) 1/fm2 the larger the T (the longer the delay line), the
stronger the PM output.
11 / 27
 Jitter
I Effective measurement of phase noise, but in the time-domain
ding Jitter
Associated with fluctuations in the times of zero-crossings of a
I
nominally DC-free periodic waveform
I While (t ) is a continuous random variable, the times of zero
crossings comprise a set of discrete random values {i }
g jitter hasI been
This critical
discretetovariable
determining the performance
is specified by the meanofand
high-speed
variance of its
probability density function (PDF), associated with
systems. Recently, as internal and external data rates of computers which is a
spectral density
eased to unprecedented levels, reducing jitter has become an even
ring highPeriod JitterinFluctuations
reliability in the timeand
high-speed databuses difference between
integrated successive zero
circuits.
crossings of a rising (or falling) edge
f a timing
ts ideal
Ideal Event Timing
a system as a
duced by every
generate,
nals. As a
Jitter Histogram
he amount of (Deviation in Event Timing)
h element of
12 / 27
 ti ti+T

8
(t ) 6
4
i

2
T 2T 3T t

Figure: Measuring Jitter on Phase Trajectory

I On plot of vs t, if T is the mean period of oscillation, then

1 1
i = ((ti + T ) (ti )) = i
2f0 2f0
I To relate period jitter to phase noise, transform it into power
spectral density, and note that it is the first difference of phase
across a delay of T = 1/f0
 2
S (f ) = S (f )1 e j2f /f0  = 4S (f )sin2 (f /f0 )
 

13 / 27
I Thus,

sin2 (f /f0 )
S (f ) = S (f )
(f0 )2
At offsets when S (f ) 1/f 2 , this spectral density of jitter is almost
constant
I To deduce the jitter variance in terms of the oscillators phase noise
spectral density
Z Z

2 sin2 (f /f0 )
= S (f )df = S (f ) df
0 0 (f0 )2

14 / 27
 LC Oscillator

C Oscillators: An Alternate Proof

I In steady-state, energy balance prevails between resonator loss
(linear resistor RP ) and active, nonlinear negative resistance
(modelled by voltage-dependent controlled source Gm (V ))

, and an Analysis of Q Degradatio GM0 GM2 =

1
RP
IEEE, Jacob J. GRael,
where Member, IEEE, and Asad A. Abidi,
M0,2 are the Fourier coefficients at DC and 2
Fellow,ofIEEE
nd harmonic

the nonlinear conductance, as it is subjected across its two terminals

to the steady-state oscillation voltage A cos(2f0 t )

azzanti has offered a

nearly-sinusoidal LC
uch oscillators (under
pendent of the specific
ve circuitry. While the
oth rely on Hajimiris
F). In this work, we
d by generalizing the
Kouznetsov, and Rael. Fig. 1. A generic negative-Gm LC oscillator model 15 / 27
I If the spectral density of current noise from the nonlinear
conductance is proportional to its instantaneous conductance,
i.e. Sin = 4kT Gm , then the total noise current responsible for the
oscillators phase noise is
1+
SiPM = 4kT
RP
independent of the nonlinearity! This is an important general result
that applies to all LC oscillators.

16 / 27
 to output noise, but did not consider correlated sidebands (i.e.
I The results of this analysis canAM/PM
fill outsidebands).
the noise factor F in Leesons
The exact approach, however, is a generalized version of
expression for phase noise in any oscillator:
that laid out in [17]. Indeed, in the limiting case of a hard-
switching 
F RPinlinearity,
f0 the2above analysis degenerates into that

2kT
L(fm ) = presented [9].
A2 /2 2Qfm
where Q is the quality factor of the LCRP resonator without the
negative resistor
I Dependence on inverse square offset frequency due to exact balance
at steady-state amplitude A between fundamental frequency current
in Rp and in Gm
to output noise, but did not consider correlated sidebands (i.e. components. These AM/PM components can then be ap
AM/PM sidebands). Orthogonal PM noise currents flow through
to (19)an unloaded LC
I
directly & (20).
The exact approach,resonator
however, is a generalized version of Consider again the noiseless oscillator shown in Fig.
that laid out in [17].
I Indeed, in the
In-phase AM limiting
noisecase upsetthis
of a hard-
currents theinstance,
balance, assume
flowthat the external
through the current source,
switching linearity, the above analysis degenerates into that a cyclostationary white noise source [20] (with respect t
parallel impedance of RP and effective Gm = GM0 + GM2
presented in [9]. (a)oscillation frequency).
Phase modulating Wecurrent
case: (i) PM can model
injected this current source
into oscillator;
(ii) Impedance seen
stationary whiteby noise
PM current sourcei , modulated by an arb
source, x
periodic real-valued waveform, w.t/. Accordingly, in will
a time-varying power spectral density equal to

ibn2 D ibx2 w 2 .t/ .

The modulation of ix .t/ and w.t/ is shown in Fig. 7

17 / 27
Fig. 5. Differential current source acting on a noiseless oscillator
I At offset frequencies of interest, spectral density of PM >> spectral
density of AM

Fig. 6. looks
I This Squared
likeimpedance seen
a hyperbolic by phase
spectral and amplitude
density modulating
(asymptote at 0), notcurrents
a
Lorentzian! Why?
I Because analysis assumes fixed oscillation frequency, f0 , which is
spectrally concentrated into a delta function. In reality, noise locks
theIV. D ECOMPOSITION
oscillator, R ESONATOR
OF Aover
causing f0 to spread -R EFERRED
a certain spectral width
C YCLOSTATIONARY W HITE N OISE S OURCE
which forms the Lorentzian.
18 / 27
Ring Oscillators
I The ring oscillator is compact in chip area, and easily designed (even
by digital designers). It remains important in applications where
reciprocal mixing with nearby blockers is not an immediate concern.
I Its principle of operation is fundamentally different than of an LC
oscillator; it oscillates because of the delay in a feedback loop, not
because of energy exchange between electric and magnetic fields
I Noise sources modulate the delay in each stage, and thus the total
delay
I White noise in all the FETs of a differential ring oscillator leads to
phase noise of the form:
" ! # 
2kT 3
1 1 f0 2
L(fm ) = 4
+ +
I ln 2 Veffd Vefft Vop fm
where I is the tail current per stage, Veff is the effective gate voltage
at balance for the differential pair in each stage and its tail current
FET, and Vop is the differential peak voltage swing (per stage).
I In a collection of delay stages, correlated modulation of the delays
will produce a large phase noise. This happens when the tail
currents are driven from a common node that is modulated by flicker
noise. Ring oscillators display a large 1/f -induced phase noise. 19 / 27
Is the Ring Oscillator a Viable Substitute for the LC
Oscillator?
I Ring Oscillator is very compact (consumes a small fraction of the
area of a small on-chip inductor)
I For its phase noise to be equal to that of a well-designed LC
oscillator at the same oscillation frequency f0 , the relative bias
currents IRO in M delay stages relate to ILC as
VDD
IRO M 8Q 2 I
Vefft ||Veffd LC

So a 3-stage ring oscillator biased at a 1V supply and FETs biased

0.2V above threshold will consume, per stage,

IRO 50 Q 2 ILC

and if the inductor Q is 3, the ring oscillator consumes 450 the

current.
I No, it is not a viable replacement when phase noise is at a premium.
But for many applications, it is fine.
20 / 27
Phase Noise in VCOs

I Noise on frequency control line causes FM, thus PM

I Straightforward analysis, using expressions for narrowband FM

f0 2V
= V Sf0 (fm ) = 2V SVC (fm ) L(fm ) = SVC (fm )
VC 4fm2
I This expression specifies the skirts of a Lorentzian spectral density

21 / 27
Oscillators within Phase-Locked Loops

I Autonomous oscillators drift, unless corrected periodically by some

stable periodic reference. This is the basis of a phase-locked loop
(PLL).
I Used for frequency multiplication, or for clock recovery.
I In frequency synthesis, the VCO inside the loop is often the main
source of phase noise
I In clock recovery, the data-carrying waveform at the loop input is
usually the dominant source of jitter in the recovered clock
I In either case, straightforward linear analysis of the frequency
response of the loop to jitter enables modelling, and optimized
design for low jitter

22 / 27
 118 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BROADCASTING, VOL. 54, NO. 1, MARCH 2008
Fig. 4. Phase noise contributions for a simple frequency synthesizer.
of 10 dB/decade for the operation frequency of the phase com-
Fig. 5. Frequency
parator. As seen in Fig. 13, this fact has been experimentally
observed. To get a frequency synthesizer with low phase noise,
the phase noise can be analyzed by using a simple frequency
therefore, it is necessary to use a high reference frequency at the
synthesizer architecture, whichphase
cancomparator.
be utilized in broadcasting
terminals. A single loop frequency synthesizer including all the noise PSD of f
IV. CONCLUSIONS
influential building blocks generating the phase noise is shown divider output
A phase noise model that predicts an accurate phase noise
in Fig. 4.
Fig. 10. Measured phase noise characteristics of frequency synthesizer for
spectrum of phase-locked loop frequency synthesizertion to the divid
was pro-
(a) PLL loop bandwidth of 5By simply adding the respective
kHz and (b) PLL loop bandwidth of 10 kHz. posed in this paper. By using the
phase noise power spectralcurve-fitting method, the Thus,
phase the pha
noise spectra of the reference signal source and a VCO were
densities, the output phase noisemodeled PSD as forphase
Fig.noise
4 iscomponents
rewritten of anfrom imated
oscillator with res- by [13]
(4): onator. Based on relation between the frequency modulation
and the phase noise spectral density, the phase noises due to
In case of phase noise model neglecting the resistor noise in the low-pass filter in the phase-locked loop were represented by
the low-pass filter, there are discrepancies in the range of high phase transfer functions to VCO input port.
offset frequency and in the neighborhood of the loop bandwidth Also, the phase noise spectra of phase comparators and fre-
of the frequency synthesizer. At offset frequencies below the quency divider circuits were modeled in the proposed phase
Fig. 12.
loop Phase noisealso,
bandwidth, characteristics of frequency
the previous modelssynthesizers
neglectingand their dif- of noise prediction model.
effects
ferent phase noise contributions.
frequency dividers
Figure: showPLLlow phaseNoise spectra compared with In validity of the proposed phase noise prediction model, the
noiseModel
Figure: Measured Phase Noise 23 / 27
Fig. 11. Measured phase noise spectra and prediction spectra for frequency
Sources of Jitter, and Identifying Them by Measurement
I Jitter can arise in practical systems from multiple sources
I Produces unique histograms, which can be used to diagnose sources
I Jitter can be of two types:
Random Unbounded. Tails in its histogram due to Gaussian PDF.
Deterministic Bounded. Periodic, data dependent, duty cycle distortion,
intersymbol interference.
I Deterministic jitter arises from coupling on to signal lines from:
1. Electromagnetic interference
2. Crosstalk
3. Reflections
I Since random and deterministic effects are independent, the
following relation applies between jitter R and D that comprise the
total jitter

PDF () = PDF (R + D ) = PDF (R ) PDF (D )

S (f ) = SR (f ) + SD (f )
24 / 27
 fDJ fRJ
P
fOJ

Figure: Convolution of Random and Determinstic Jitter PDF

4

There are several metrics used to define

PLL performance. Metrics are selected
depending on the target application of
the PLL.

In the following example, the SIA-3000

and VISI software analyze jitter sources
in a circuit with a PLL. The analysis
starts with a histogram of period
measurements to identify the
magnitude of the jitter problem.
Fig. 7 is an example of a non-Gaussian
histogram, indicating that DJ is present.
The figure shows a Gaussian tail in red
fit to the left of the distribution, and
Figure: Typical
Figure 7. This histogram ofComposite
period measurementsHistogram
includes RJ and DJ.
a Gaussian tail in blue fit to the right Note that the tails have been matched to a Gaussian distribution.
of the distribution. The average of the
right and left standard deviation provides
25 / 27
 InfiniBand, SONET, Serial ATA, 3GIO
I Random and Firewire components and systems.
and deterministic jitter may be deconvolved from
In high-speed serial communication
The TailFit algorithmhistogram, byjitter
a patented WAVECREST first
innovationfitting
is capable tails of distribution
of separating RJ to best-fit Gaussian
signals, is caused by many
from actual measurement distributions by using the Gaussian nature of the tail regions of
I Then
non-Gaussian histograms. histogram of deterministic jitter is extracted by deconvolution.
factors,
The algorithm first including:
identifies a tail region of the histogram, then
fits the data with a Gaussian histogram that best coincides with the tail region. The process
Histogram does not specify frequency of jitter-inducing signal.
Bandwidth
repeats for each side of the histogram. The RJ valueseffects on are
for the tails ISIaveraged to represent
the RJ for the distribution when calculating TJ. Figure 5 shows a Gaussian tail fit to the left
(red) and rightI
Optical and electrical
Spectral density of jitter is useful to isolate frequencies, which
(blue) of the distribution. Chi-squared is used as a gauge to determine the
connectors
quality of fit. It is an iterative process, and ends whenandthe cables
results converge. To limit the
appear as discrete lines.
iterative process, an estimate of the initial
Noisefitting
on theparameters
PLLs isreference
made by the algorithm
using the tail portions of the distribution. Most important, you can determine the DJ and
frequency signal
RJ components, regardless of the shape of the data histogram.
Power supply noise b
Internal switching noise
Keep adjusting 1,
Crosstalk
mean and magnitude
until tails obtain the
Signal reflections
best fit with the data. Optical laser source

Measuring jitter on a high-speed serial

lyzing jitter on
device can be done with the SIA-3000
h-speed devices and DataCOM software. Data signals
can be analyzed with a repeating pat-
tern or data with a bitclock. We can
determine the DCD and ISI components
Figure 6. The TailFit algorithm enables the that can aprovide
user to identify information
Gaussian curve about
with a coincident tail region in order to Figure 10a shows DDJ as a function of the bit position.

Figure: Tail
until an optimal match is found. Then, the bandwidth
fittingcurveto
1 of the matched limitations,
Gaussian
quantify the random or Gaussian component of the distribution. Various curves are fitted against the distribution
asvalue
is used as the RJ well any tail. Figure
asparticular
for that
Figure:
10b showsMeasured spectrum
an FFT with a periodic spike at 52(FFT)
MHz that
This is repeated for both sides of the distribution, and the two RJ values are averaged to get the overall RJ value. contributes 38 ps of jitter. Together, these figures illustrate the
PJ component that could be caused of jitter
DJ components of TJ.
by crosstalk or EMI, and RJ (which
affects long-term system reliability). 26 / 27
1. Anon. (2004, May 5, 2010). Clock (CLK) Jitter and Phase Noise
Conversion. Maxim Integrated Products (App Note 3359), 8.
2. A. A. Abidi, Phase Noise and Jitter in CMOS Ring Oscillators, IEEE
Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 41, no. 8, pp. 1803-1816, 2006.
3. A. Hajimiri, Noise in phase-locked loops, in Southwest Symposium on
Mixed-Signal Design, 2001, pp. 1-6.
4. Y. W. Kim and J. D. Yu, Phase Noise Model of Single Loop Frequency
Synthesizer, IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, vol. 54, no. 1, pp.
112-119, 2008.
5. M. Li. (2009, May 5, 2010). Deterministic Jitter (DJ) Definition and
Measurement Methods. Available:
www.ieee802.org3bapublicjan09li 01 0109pdf
6. A. Mirzaei and A. A. Abidi, The Spectrum of a Noisy Free-Running
Oscillator Explained by Random Frequency Pulling, IEEE Transactions
on Circuits and Systems I, vol. 57, no. 3, pp. 642-653, 2010.
7. D. Murphy, J. J. Rael, and A. A. Abidi, Phase Noise in LC Oscillators: A
Phasor-Based Analysis of a General Result and of Loaded Q, IEEE
Transactions on Circuits and Systems I, 2009.
8. E. Rubiola. (2009, May 5, 2010). Phase Noise. Available:
www.rubiola.org
9. D. Scherer. (1985, May 5, 2010). The Art of Phase Noise
Measurement. HP Application Notes (Hewlett-Packard), 34. Available:
www.hparchive.com
27 / 27