Understanding and Characterizing Timing Jitter

Timing jitter is the unwelcome companion of all electrical systems that use voltage transitions to represent timing information. Historically, electrical systems have lessened the ill effects of timing jitter (or, simply "jitter") by employing relatively low signaling rates. As a consequence, jitter-induced errors have been small when compared with the time intervals that they corrupt. The timing margins associated with today's high-speed serial buses and data links reveal that a tighter control of jitter is needed throughout the system design. This paper introduces the consequences of jitter and defines jitter.