PicoTimeâ„¢ Pico Second Resolution Test Set0 pages

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PicoTime™
Pico Second Resolution Test Set
• Clock characterization such as
quartz crystal oscillator, Rubidium
atomic clocks and cesium clocks
• Calibration of quartz crystal
oscillator, and atomic clocks
• Easy to use
• Small volume
• DUT Frequency Range:
1MHz to 30 MHz
• Phase time resolution and
noise: <2ps rms
• Automatic operation
• No calibration required
System Description
The system is designed to make a direct frequency measurement in
comparison with an external 10 MHz frequency reference. Picotime
is based on a heterodyne system using direct digital synthesizer (DDS)
technology to allow measurements in the range of up to 30 MHz. The
external 10 MHz reference divided by 2x107 is used to make time
interval measurement each second.
Direct frequency measurement is used for programming DDS.
The DDS divides the device frequency around 1kHz by using
two mixers. As indicated in the block-diagram, the whole system
The Pendulum PicoTime™ is a low-cost, high-performance measurement test set. It features
a cutting- edge 1ps resolution and an easy-to-use software application for performance
analysis.
Figure 1: Block diagram
Figure 2: System Noise in ideal conditions
is based on a heterodyne architecture with a double frequency
conversion.
Three outputs are available:
• 1kHz where a crystal fi lter based PLL is used to restrict the
bandwidth to only 1Hz
• 1kHz with about several 100 kHz bandwidth
• 1pps reference
The system is controlled with the PC COM interface. When
connecting an external counter, other types of measurements can
be performed. The power is supplied by an external power supply
converter (230 V~/50 Hz to +12 V DC).