It is the small unwanted residual periodic variation of the direct current (DC) output of a power supply which has been derived from an alternating current (AC) source. The wave form is shown as figure below.
There are two AC contents, also known as Ripple and Noise (R&N), on the DC output. The first one, coming from sine wave rectification, is at a low frequency which is 2 times of the input frequency; the second one is at high frequency which is from the switching frequency. For measuring high frequency noise, a configuration of an oscilloscope with a bandwidth of 20MHz, a scope probe with shortest ground wire possible, and add 0.1uF and 47uF capacitors in parallel with test point for filtering out noise interference are required.