Periodic Jitter Amplitude Calibration with Walking Strobe

Jitter insertion is a feature an automatic test equipment (ATE) provides for high speed SerDes device jitter tolerance testing. The amplitude of inserted periodic jitter (PJ) and its frequency are programmable. This article focuses on a technique developed to measure and calibrate the PJ amplitude of the ATE jitter insertion circuit. It uses a measurement tool called the walking strobe to systematically capture the jittered waveform and reconstruct it such that the jitter amplitude measurement consists of a series of edge time measurements. The method is accurate, fast, and low cost. This paper will also present experimental results