Phase noise and timing jitter in oscillators with colored-noise sources

Abstract

Phase noise or timing jitter in oscillators is of major concern in wireless and optical communications, being a major contributor to the bit-error rate of communication systems, and creating synchronization problems in other clocked and sampled-data systems. This paper presents the theory and practical characterization of phase noise in oscillators due to colored, as opposed to white, noise sources. Shot and thermal noise sources in oscillators can be modeled as white-noise sources for all practical purposes. The characterization of phase noise in oscillators due to shot and thermal noise sources is covered by a recently developed theory of phase noise due to white-noise sources. The extension of this theory and the practical characterization techniques to noise sources in oscillators, which have a colored spectral density, e.g., 1/f noise, is crucial for practical applications. In this paper, we first derive a stochastic characterization of phase noise in oscillators due to colored-noise sources. This stochastic analysis is based on a novel nonlinear perturbation analysis for autonomous systems, and a nonlocal Fokker-Planck equation we derive. Then, we calculate the resulting spectrum of the oscillator output with phase noise as characterized. We also extend our results to the case when both white and colored-noise sources are present. Our treatment of phase noise due to colored-noise sources is general, i.e., it is not specific to a particular type of colored-noise source.