Patent ID: 8594169

Claim:
A method for analyzing jitter using a test and measurement instrument, the method comprising: storing a data pattern associated with a waveform in an acquisition memory; identifying edge locations associated with the data pattern of the waveform; comparing the edge locations to a timing reference; obtaining a collection of time interval error values responsive to the comparison, the collection of time interval error values corresponding to a composite jitter of the waveform; decomposing the composite jitter into jitter components that are correlated to the data pattern and jitter components that are uncorrelated to the data pattern; using a spectral approach, decomposing the jitter components that are uncorrelated to the data pattern into jitter components that are recognizable as periodic and jitter components that are unrecognizable as periodic; converting the jitter components decomposed using the spectral approach to a time domain; subtracting from the composite jitter the jitter components that are correlated to the data pattern and the recognizably periodic jitter components, thereby isolating uncorrelated residual jitter; and decomposing the uncorrelated residual jitter into bounded uncorrelated jitter and random jitter, including: accumulating one or more data sets of uncorrelated residual jitter into a combined residual jitter; producing an estimated cumulative distribution function (CDF) curve of the combined residual jitter; examining the CDF curve of the combined residual jitter in Q-space; and isolating the bounded uncorrelated jitter based on the examination of the CDF curve of the combined residual jitter in Q-space, including: determining a first asymptote by performing a linear fit to a first portion of the CDF curve of the combined residual jitter in Q-space; determining a slope of the first asymptote; projecting the first asymptote in accordance with the determined slope until it intersects Q=0 axis at an intercept J L ; determining a second asymptote by performing a linear fit to a second portion of the CDF curve of the combined residual jitter in Q-space; determining a slope of the second asymptote; projecting the second asymptote in accordance with the determined slope until it intersects Q=0 axis at an intercept J R ; isolating the bounded uncorrelated jitter based on a comparison of J L and J R .