A low-jitter timing generator based on completely on-chip self-measurement and calibration in a field programmable...

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Computer Engineering
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and integrated delay lines are crucial for achieving picosecond-level timing resolution.
• Pure digital delay methods in external trigger modes suffer from time irregularity and significant jitter due to trigger entry time uncertainty.
• Existing solutions struggle with compensating for trigger entry time variations, leading to output timing jitter.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and present a high-stability and low-jitter Arbitrary Timing Generator (ATG).
• To develop an ATG utilizing FPGA resources with integrated delay lines for enhanced timing resolution.
• To incorporate self-measurement and calibration methods for jitter reduction in both internal and external trigger modes.

Main Methods:

• Design of an Arbitrary Timing Generator (ATG) leveraging Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology.
• Implementation of a special integrated delay line within the FPGA for precise timing control.
• Inclusion of jitter self-measurement and calibration functionalities for performance optimization.

Main Results:

• Achieved a sub-nanosecond timing resolution of 78 ± 20 picoseconds (ps), with a minimum resolution of 120 ps.
• Demonstrated a time jitter of 160 ± 20 ps in external trigger mode after employing compensation techniques.
• The proposed ATG design utilizes solely FPGA internal resources, offering simplicity and flexibility.

Conclusions:

• The developed FPGA-based ATG provides a high-stability, low-jitter solution for precise timing generation.
• The integrated jitter self-measurement and calibration methods effectively reduce timing irregularities.
• This design offers a flexible and resource-efficient approach for advanced timing applications.