Timing Extraction in Baseband Pulse Transmission

Timing extraction through nonlinearity in the presence of pulse overlaps is studied for baseband PCM or PAM systems. It is shown that the systematic jitter can be reduced by proper choices of nonlinearity, coding scheme, and pulse waveform. Discussions on choice of nonlinearity indicate that square-law rectification is desirable for elimination of jitter sources. This nonlinearity derives a frequency-domain expression for amplitude and phase of the timing wave that separates the effects of pulse pattern and pulse shapes and provides insight to their contributions to timing jitter. Proper choices of coding scheme and pulse waveform reduce amplitude and phase variation in the timing wave. For example, an optimum prefiltering (or correlative coding) reduces amplitude variation to one eighth for bipolar sequence. In the case of symmetrical reshaping by a Bessel (flat delay) filter, the maximum jitter exceeds 20 degrees if the order of a filter is less than ten. An asymmetrical reshaping makes the maximum jitter less than four degrees for the same order of filter. Some features of nonlinearities that approximate square-law rectification are discussed.