TL;DR
This paper presents a high-resolution waveform capture device implemented on an FPGA that achieves picosecond timing accuracy using a novel calibration method, enabling precise digital signal measurements with open-source tools.
Contribution
The paper introduces a flexible FPGA-based measurement system with a novel dynamic phase-shifting calibration, achieving sub-5 ps resolution and providing open-source code for replication.
Findings
Measurement resolution of ~4.9 ps for high and low pulses.
Single-shot timing error around 29 ps.
Reproduced oscilloscope measurements of FPGA ring-oscillators.
Abstract
We introduce the waveform capture device (WCD), a flexible measurement system capable of recording complex digital signals on trillionth-of-a-second (ps) time scales. The WCD is implemented via modular code on an off-the-shelf field-programmable gate-array (FPGA, Intel/Altera Cyclone V), and incorporates both time-to-digital converter (TDC) and digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) functionality. The device captures a waveform by taking snapshots of a signal as it propagates down an ultra-fast transmission line known as a carry chain (CC). It is calibrated via a novel dynamic phase-shifting (DPS) method that requires substantially less data and resources than the state-of-the-art. Using DPS, we find the measurement resolution - or mean propagation delay from one CC element to the next - to be 4.91 +/- 0.04 ps (4.54 +/- 0.02 ps) for a pulse of logic high (low). Similarly, we find the…
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