A DC to 5 GHz TDR pulse generating unit with a highly stable timebase for use in a plasma diagnostic measurement system

A pulse based system for generating and processing an ultra-wideband radio frequency signal for the use within a plasma diagnostic measurement system called multipole resonance probe is presented. For fulfilling the fairly high demands on the required frequency range a new integrated truly differential ultra-wideband pulse generator was developed. This generator achieves a pulse width of less than 70 ps resulting in a bandwidth of about 5 GHz. As an appropriate subsampling of this ultra-wideband pulse is only possible with a timebase offering an extremely low phase noise level a new concept was developed. This concept shows a phase noise level of about -150 dBc/Hz @ 50 kHz offset at a signal frequency of 21.4 MHz. These results prove the feasibility of the developed components for an application within the plasma diagnostic concept.