Bit error probability of a very high data rate, amplitude modulated, communication system affected by timing jitter

When designing communication links, rises the issue of the modulation type selection. As two kinds of disturbances, thermal noise and jitter, degrade Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) link performance, this design step is not straight forward. Considering only M order Pulse Amplitude Modulation (M-PAM) in this work, we propose to give the analytical expression of the bit error probability (BEP) of a high speed SerDes link considering both disturbances. This way we will be able to foresee the performances of a SerDes link for a given modulation order and select the best one. The BEP computation differs from the literature as the high data rate prevents here the use of a matched filter at the reception. The analytical expression of the BEP is detailed. The Bit Error Rate (BER) is obtained via simulation. Reliability of the analytical expression is discussed by comparing theoretical and simulation results. We conclude that our analytical expression of the BEP stands for an upper performance limit that enables the ranking of various modulation orders.