2,252 research outputs found
Phase Locked Loop Test Methodology
Phase locked loops are incorporated into almost every large-scale mixed signal and digital system on chip (SOC). Various types of PLL architectures exist including fully analogue, fully digital, semi-digital, and software based. Currently the most commonly used PLL architecture for SOC environments and chipset applications is the Charge-Pump (CP) semi-digital type. This architecture is commonly used for clock synthesis applications, such as the supply of a high frequency on-chip clock, which is derived from a low frequency board level clock. In addition, CP-PLL architectures are now frequently used for demanding RF (Radio Frequency) synthesis, and data synchronization applications. On chip system blocks that rely on correct PLL operation may include third party IP cores, ADCs, DACs and user defined logic (UDL). Basically, any on-chip function that requires a stable clock will be reliant on correct PLL operation. As a direct consequence it is essential that the PLL function is reliably verified during both the design and debug phase and through production testing. This chapter focuses on test approaches related to embedded CP-PLLs used for the purpose of clock generation for SOC. However, methods discussed will generally apply to CP-PLLs used for other applications
Quantum diffusion of microcavity solitons
Coherently pumped (Kerr) solitons in an ideal optical microcavity are expected to undergo random quantum motion that determines fundamental performance limits in applications of the soliton microcombs. Here this random walk and its impact on Kerr soliton timing jitter are studied experimentally. The quantum limit is discerned by measuring the relative position of counter-propagating solitons. Their relative motion features weak interactions and also presents common-mode suppression of technical noise, which typically hides the quantum fluctuations. This is in contrast to co-propagating solitons, which are found to have relative timing jitter well below the quantum limit of a single soliton on account of strong correlation of their mutual motion. Good agreement is found between theory and experiment. The results establish the fundamental limits to timing jitter in soliton microcombs and provide new insights on multisoliton physics
Photon bunching in parametric down-conversion with continuous wave excitation
The first direct measurement of photon bunching (g2 correlation function) in
one output arm of a spontaneous-parametric-down-conversion source operated with
a continuous pump laser in the single-photon regime is demonstrated. The result
is in agreement with the statistics of a thermal field of the same coherence
length, and shows the feasibility of investigating photon statistics with
compact cw-pumped sources. Implications for entanglement-based quantum
cryptography are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, expanded introduction and experimental details
added. Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.
Model-based asymptotically optimal dispersion measure correction for pulsar timing
In order to reach the sensitivity required to detect gravitational waves,
pulsar timing array experiments need to mitigate as much noise as possible in
timing data. A dominant amount of noise is likely due to variations in the
dispersion measure. To correct for such variations, we develop a statistical
method inspired by the maximum likelihood estimator and optimal filtering. Our
method consists of two major steps. First, the spectral index and amplitude of
dispersion measure variations are measured via a time-domain spectral analysis.
Second, the linear optimal filter is constructed based on the model parameters
found in the first step, and is used to extract the dispersion measure
variation waveforms. Compared to current existing methods, this method has
better time resolution for the study of short timescale dispersion variations,
and generally produces smaller errors in waveform estimations. This method can
process irregularly sampled data without any interpolation because of its
time-domain nature. Furthermore, it offers the possibility to interpolate or
extrapolate the waveform estimation to regions where no data is available.
Examples using simulated data sets are included for demonstration.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures, submitted 15th Sept. 2013, accepted 2nd April
2014 by MNRAS. MNRAS, 201
Overcoming Noise in Entanglement Distribution
Noise can be considered the natural enemy of quantum information. An often
implied benefit of high-dimensional entanglement is its increased resilience to
noise. However, manifesting this potential in an experimentally meaningful
fashion is challenging and has never been done before. In infinite dimensional
spaces, discretisation is inevitable and renders the effective dimension of
quantum states a tunable parameter. Owing to advances in experimental
techniques and theoretical tools, we demonstrate an increased resistance to
noise by identifying two pathways to exploit high-dimensional entangled states.
Our study is based on two separate experiments utilising canonical
spatio-temporal properties of entangled photon pairs. Following these different
pathways to noise resilience, we are able to certify entanglement in the
photonic orbital-angular-momentum and energy-time degrees of freedom up to
noise conditions corresponding to a noise fraction of 72 % and 92 %
respectively. Our work paves the way towards practical quantum communication
systems that are able to surpass current noise and distance limitations, while
not compromising on potential device-independence.Comment: 12 pages main text, 7 pages supplementary information, 6 figure
A Self-timed Ring Based True Random Number Generator
International audienceSelf-timed rings are oscillators in which several events can evolve evenly-spaced in time thanks to analog effects inherent to the ring stage structure. One of their interesting features is that they provide precise high-speed multiphase signals. This paper presents a true random number generator that exploits the jitter of events propagating in a self-timed ring with a high entropy. Designs implemented in Altera Cyclone III and Xilinx Virtex 5 devices provide high quality random bit sequences passing FIPS 140-1 and NIST SP 800-22 statistical tests at a high bit rate
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