Quantization-Robust On-Chip Jitter Measurement Technique for Multiple Local Oscillator Systems

Advanced 5G/6G transceiver architectures often contain multiple local oscillators with stringent phase noise requirements. The common technique of cycle-to-cycle jitter for on-chip phase stability monitoring suffers however from an up-scaling of quantization noise for high frequency low phase oscillators. We propose a technique based on time difference measurements between the edges of two independent local oscillators, which may be of different frequency. For validation a test circuit designed in 16 nm FinFET CMOS technology was measured with results showing good agreement between the proposed technique and expectations by high-precision laboratory equipment. With a quantization noise floor limited to far-off frequency components, our concept enables a quantization-robust minimal area-overhead on-chip jitter measurement for phase noise monitoring in build-in self-tests or phase-noise power trade-off techniques.