Research on Dead-time Free Frequency Measurement Technology Based on TDC

Tao LIU; Guochao CHEN; Faxi CHEN; Kan ZHAO; Ruifang DONG; Shougang ZHANG

doi:10.11999/JEIT200807

Volume 43 Issue 9

Sep. 2021

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Article Navigation > Journal of Electronics & Information Technology > 2021 > 43(9): 2518-2525

Tao LIU, Guochao CHEN, Faxi CHEN, Kan ZHAO, Ruifang DONG, Shougang ZHANG. Research on Dead-time Free Frequency Measurement Technology Based on TDC[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology, 2021, 43(9): 2518-2525. doi: 10.11999/JEIT200807

Citation:

Tao LIU, Guochao CHEN, Faxi CHEN, Kan ZHAO, Ruifang DONG, Shougang ZHANG. Research on Dead-time Free Frequency Measurement Technology Based on TDC[J]. Journal of Electronics & Information Technology, 2021, 43(9): 2518-2525. doi: 10.11999/JEIT200807

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Research on Dead-time Free Frequency Measurement Technology Based on TDC

doi: 10.11999/JEIT200807

Tao LIU^{1, 2, 4},
Guochao CHEN^{1, 2, 4},
Faxi CHEN^{1, 2, 3
,
,},
Kan ZHAO^{1, 2},
Ruifang DONG^{1, 2, 4},
Shougang ZHANG^{1, 2, 4}

1.
National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710600, China
2.
Key Laboratory of Time and Frequency Standards, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710600, China
3.
Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China
4.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Funds: The Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB21030200), The Research and Development Program in Key Areas of Guangdong Province (2018B030325001)

Received Date: 2020-10-28
Rev Recd Date: 2021-02-22

Available Online: 2021-03-30

Publish Date: 2021-09-16

Abstract

Abstract

In the fields requiring precise time and frequency measurement and control, high-precision, dead-time free time interval and frequency measurements are highly demanded. TDC (Time to Digital Converter) is commonly adopted in time and frequency measurement. In this paper, a self-developed multi-module time-interval measurement system is built based on the time digital conversion chip TDC-GP21 from ACAM company and the Cyclone IV FPGA chip EP4CE6E22C8N from Altera Company. For each time-interval measurement module, a time-interval measurement resolution as small as 13 ps is achieved. By further duplex operating two such time-interval measurement modules, a dead-time free frequency measurement is realized, the time and frequency measurement system involves three groups, each of which has 3 TDC chips. By averaging the measurement results of three TDC chips in each group, a frequency instability reaches $ 1.1\times {10}^{-11} $@ 1s and $ 5.6\times {10}^{-15} $@10000 s. This result shows that this self-developed apparatus approaches the performance of the commercial K+K FXE frequency counter. Due to its advantages of small size, no calibration and low cost, this apparatus can be widely used in applications that require high-precision time interval and precise frequency measurements.
- Frequency measurement,
- Time interval measurement,
- Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC),
- High precision,
- Dead-time free

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References(21)

References

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