Serial data transceiver architecture and test method for measuring the amount of jitter within a serial data stream

Abstract

A serial data transceiver architecture and test method are presented for measuring the amount of jitter within a serial data stream. A transmitter of the transceiver receives parallel input data at a transmit data input port, converts the parallel input data to a serial data stream having data windows separated by data transition periods, and produces the serial data stream at a transmitter output port. A receiver of the transceiver receives a serial data stream at a receiver input port, converts the serial data stream to parallel output data, and provides the parallel output data at a receive data output port. The receiver includes a deserializer which receives the serial data stream, recovers the transmit clock signal used to transmit the serial data from the serial data stream, generates a timing signal based upon the recovered transmit clock signal, samples the serial data stream using the timing signal in order to recover the data from the serial data stream, aligns the deserialized data into parallel units, and provides the resulting parallel data at the receive data output port. The deserializer samples the serial data stream within each data window dependent upon the duty cycle of the timing signal. The deserializer varies the duty cycle of the timing signal according to a received control signal in order to facilitate measurement of the amount of jitter within the serial data stream.