Signals synchronization in interpolating time counters

W artykule opisano wyniki analizy synchronizacji sygnałów, realizowanej w precyzyjnych licznikach czasu. W szczególności analiza dotyczy licznika czasu z interpolacją dwustopniową, czterofazowym zegarem o częstotliwości 250 MHz w pierwszym stopniu interpolacji, zrealizowanego w układzie programowalnym FPGA. Analizie poddano trzy układy synchronizacji stosowane w pierwszym stopniu interpolacji dwustopniowych konwerterów czasowo-cyfrowych oraz pięć synchronizatorów licznika okresów. Jako główne kryteria oceny układów użyto maksymalną częstotliwość działania, średni czas między błędami oraz łatwość wykonania w układzie programowalnym.This paper presents the results of an analysis of synchronization issues in precise time counters. Particularly the analysis concerns a time counter with two-stage interpolation, four-phase clock of 250-MHz frequency in the first interpolation stage, implemented in an FPGA device. Three synchronizing circuits used in the first interpolation stage of two-stage time-to-digital converters and five synchronizers of enabling signal for period counter are analyzed. For the evaluation of the circuits quality following criteria were applied: the maximum frequency of operation, the mean time between failure and easiness of implementation in a programmable device

A high precision time-to-digital converter based on pulse repetition and time width averaging

This paper describes the design and test results of a time-to-digital converter with 1.9 ps resolution and measurement uncertainty below 12.2 ps (Fig. 4). The time-to-digital conversion is based on time width averaging. Information about the measured time interval is contained in the width of a pulse that circulates in a closed delay loop and its width is measured by the counting method with use of a high frequency multiphase clock (Fig. 1). The converter resolution is directly proportional to the number of cycles of the measured pulse in the delay loop, the number of phases and frequency of a clock used (2). However, increase in the number of loop cycles causes growth in the jitter of circulating pulse edges that finally leads to deterioration in the measurement precision. Therefore, in order to obtain the highest precision of conversion, the number of cycles for which the converter provides the smallest measurement uncertainty was experimentally determined. In addition, to minimize a disadvantageous impact of unequal propagation times of the loop elements for the rising and falling pulse edges on the value of the measured time interval, the information about the measured time interval is contained between the rising edges of the pulse-pair instead of the opposite (rising and falling) edges of a single pulse (Fig. 2). The converter was implemented in a programmable device Spartan-6 manufactured by Xilinx. (Xilinx)

Direct Digital Synthesizer based on Field Programmable Gate Array

We present the principle (Chapter 2), implementation (Chapter 3) and test results (Chapter 4) of direct digital synthesizer (DDS) that most modules, i.e. phase accumulator, ROM memory and optional amplitude control module are implemented in a digital Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. To obtain smooth shape of analog output signals the FPGA device is followed by a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and low-pass filter (LPF). The developed DDS allows for generating signals with frequency up to 50 MHz and amplitude up to 1 Vpp. The frequency adjustment resolution is 1.9 kHz, while the amplitude adjustment step equals 61.04 µV. The use of programmable device allows for changing the size of tuning words to adapt the DDS parameters to requirements of particular application

Integrated time-to-digital converter with the use of the counter method and a multiphase clock

W artykule przedstawione są projekt i wyniki badań konwertera czas-liczba o rozdzielczości 78 ps i niepewności pomiarowej poniżej 100 ps. Pomiar czasu realizowany jest z użyciem 32 liczników zliczających okresy szesnastofazowego zegara o częstotliwości 400 MHz. Ponieważ aktywne są obydwa zbocza zegara jest on równoważny pojedynczemu sygnałowi zegarowemu o częstotliwości 12.8 GHz, co umożliwia osiągnięcie średniej rozdzielczości ok. 78 ps przy interpolacji jednostopniowej. Budowa opisanego konwertera czasliczba pozwala na łatwe rozszerzanie zakresu pomiarowego, wynoszącego 164 žs, poprzez zwiększanie pojemności użytych liczników dwójkowych. Sterowanie procesem pomiarowym oraz wyznaczanie i przetwarzanie wyników pomiarów odbywa się z użyciem dwóch procesorów programowych NIOS II zintegrowanych z konwerterem w układzie programowalnym Stratix II firmy Altera.This paper describes design and test results of the time-to-digital converter with 78 ps resolution and accuracy below 100 ps. The time interval measurement is performed with the use of 32 binary counters counting periods of 16-phase clock of the 400 MHz frequency. Since both edges of the clock are active it is an equivalent of a single clock signal of 12.8 GHz frequency, which provides a mean resolution of about 78 ps in a single interpolation stage. The structure of the converter allows to extend its measurement range (164 žs) easily by increasing the capacity of used binary counters. The measurement as well as calculation and processing of obtained results are controlled by two soft-core processors NIOS II implemented together with the converter in a single programmable device from family Stratix II (Altera)

A programmable delay line

The paper describes the design and test results of a programmable digital delay line implemented in an FPGA device (Kintex-7, Xilinx). The operation of the delay line is based on the modified dual interpolation Nutt method that combines two actions, i.e.: (1) counting the periods of a reference clock and (2) time interpolating within a single clock period. The first action provides an extremely wide range of the introduced delays (> 9 minutes), while the second one allows reaching relatively high delay resolution (2 ns) with a timing jitter as low as 35 ps (until delay of 1 μs). The high metrological parameters of the designed delay line are achieved at the expense of increased difficulty in implementation of the method in an integrated circuit. The major problems to be solved were the synchronizations of input signals as well as synchronous and asynchronous parts of the system, which were effectively provided with the use of two dual-edge synchronizers, a clock signal logic level detection system and associated synchronizers

A study of the effect of temperature changes on the interpolating time counter

This paper presents an analysis of the impact of ambient temperature changes on main parameters of the interpolating time counter. The performed tests reveal that a relatively small change in the ambient temperature of 1°C causes a measurement error of the counter as large as 3.5 ps. The thorough research of two stages of interpolation of the counter allowed determining the main sources of the error. One of them is the temperature drift of widths of four-phase clock (FPC) segments in the first interpolation stage (FIS). It equals 2.5 ps/°C. The widths of FPC phases directly influence the active range of the second interpolation stage (SIS) and its offset. The test results also show that the temperature drift of the offset has a greater impact on the measurement accuracy than the temperature-driven changes of quantization steps in SIS. The presented conclusions are the first step to develop a new method for reducing the impact of changes in the ambient temperature on the measurement accuracy of the interpolating time counter

A hardware/software development environment for SoC-based time interval counters

The paper describes a design environment for development of precise time counters. The design was implemented in a System-on-Chip Zynq from Xilinx as an embedded solution with a custom user interface. The paper presents the system design, a dedicated time counter interface, and software running on the processing part of the Zynq device. It also contains the results of all system performance tests. The tests reveal the design advantages over the traditional approach, involving an FPGA device connected to a PC that serves as a host with a dedicated user interface. The presented development environment allowed reducing the calibration and measurement times twofold and threefold, respectively. Furthermore, thanks to the bus interface designed for data transmission from the time counter to the control module, the 200 MB/s data throughput inside the SoC was achieved

A high resolution time-to-digital converter based on pulse sampling

W artykule opisane są projekt i wyniki badań konwertera czasowo-cyfrowego o rozdzielczości 9 ps i niepewności pomiarowej nie przekraczającej 31 ps. Konwerter został zrealizowany w układzie programowalnym Cyclone firmy Altera. Do konwersji czasowo-cyfrowej użyto nowatorskiej metody, w której informacja o mierzonym odcinku czasu zawarta jest w szerokości impulsu, propagującego się wielokrotnie w zamkniętej pętli opóźniającej i próbkowanego z użyciem wielofazowego zegara o wysokiej częstotliwości. Sterowanie procesem pomiarowym oraz obliczanie i przetwarzanie wyników pomiarów odbywa się z wykorzystaniem dedykowanego interfejsu użytkownika opracowanego w języku C++.W artykule opisane są projekt i wyniki badań konwertera czasowo-cyfrowego o rozdzielczości 9 ps i niepewności pomiarowej nie przekraczającej 31 ps. Konwerter został zrealizowany w układzie programowalnym Cyclone firmy Altera. Do konwersji czasowo-cyfrowej użyto nowatorskiej metody, w której informacja o mierzonym odcinku czasu zawarta jest w szerokości impulsu, propagującego się wielokrotnie w zamkniętej pętli opóźniającej i próbkowanego z użyciem wielofazowego zegara o wysokiej częstotliwości. Sterowanie procesem pomiarowym oraz obliczanie i przetwarzanie wyników pomiarów odbywa się z wykorzystaniem dedykowanego interfejsu użytkownika opracowanego w języku C++.The paper describes the design and test results of a time-to-digital converter with 9 ps resolution and measurement uncertainty below 31 ps. The converter has been implemented in a programmable device Cyclone manufactured by Altera. The time-to-digital conversion is based on sampling of a periodic square signal. Information about the measured time interval is contained in the width of a pulse that circulates in a closed delay loop and is sampled with the use of a high frequency clock. This method is innovative in the kind of application and it has not been implemented in an integrated circuit so far. In order to achieve both high resolution and high measurement uncertainty the four-phase sampling clock has been used. Such solution allows for fourfold reduction in a number of cycles in the loop and consequently to diminish the measurement error significantly. The four-phase clock has been generated with an embedded PLL functional block. An issue of fundamental importance for the successful implementation of the converter was the use of two short pulses as a representation of the begin and the end of a measured time interval instead of a single long-width pulse. In this way an unpredictable shrinking or stretching of a measured time interval by elements of the delay loop that have different propagation times for rising and falling edges has been avoided. The measurement as well as calculation and processing of obtained results are controlled with the use of dedicated user interface worked out in C++