Timing jitter and pump-induced amplitude modulation in thecolliding-pulse mode-locked (CPM) laser

The timing jitter and spurious amplitude modulation of colliding-pulse mode-locked (CPM) lasers were measured. The absolute jitter (the jitter of the laser alone) varied between 5 and 10 ps RMS in a 50-500-Hz bandwidth. The smallest measured relative jitter (timing fluctuations between the CPM and a radio-frequency (RF) synthesizer synchronized to the CPM) was 1.8 ps RMS in a 2-Hz to 1-kHz bandwidth. Separate from the jitter, spurious modulation in the CW pump laser mixes with the CPM pulse train to produce a set of discrete amplitude-modulated sidebands in the power spectrum of the CPM output. The frequencies of these sidebands change with cavity length, and the sidebands can be eliminated by operating the pump laser in a single longitudinal mode     

Electrooptic sampling of a packaged high-speed GaAs integratedcircuit

The authors describe the use of electrooptic sampling to characterize the performance of a packaged 1.7-GHz GaAs planar integrated decision circuit. To study the packaged device, it was necessary for the optical probe beam to impinge on the circuit from the front (active) side. This geometry enabled effective evaluation of the circuit, in spite of reduced spatial resolution and voltage sensitivity compared to a backside probing geometry. Using a gain-switched InGaAsP laser source, waveforms have been measured in the D flip-flop within the circuit and propagation delays of about 25 ps in the input buffers. Apparent crosstalk has been measured when the probe is positioned between adjacent active circuit lines and it is found that this crosstalk depends sensitively on the position of the probe beam     

An architecture for self-test of a wireless communication systemusing sampled IQ modulation and boundary scan

An architecture for system-level self-test of a wireless communication transceiver integrates the functional (parametric) self-test of the radio frequency subsystem, and the structural self-test of the digital subsystem. The digital subsystem is tested using extensions of the IEEE 1149.1 boundary scan standard to verify connections within circuit boards and between boards. The RF subsystem is tested using a loopback connection between the RF transmitter and receiver. An RF parametric self-test is performed using a digitally modulated signal (as opposed to a sinusoidal tone) as the test stimulus, and using samples from the receiver digitizer as test data. This loopback test scheme imposes a relatively small overhead on the RF system design