Fpga Implementation Of High-precision Time Interval Measurement

High-precision time interval measurement is a strategic subject, which will draw growing attention in the future. It is widely used in scientific research like nuclear physics experiments and astronomy observations. It is also used in industry sectors including integrated circuit testing and telecommunication. Besides, it is an indispensable technique for military applications, such as laser ranging and aviationnavigation.A high-precision time interval measurement module integrated in Virtex 4 FPGA is introduced in this thesis. The principle of high-precision time interval (TI) measurement and the mainstream TI measurement techniques, including Vernier method, TI stretcher and delay line method etc, are introduced in the beginning chapter of the thesis. The tapped delay line method and the implementation of this method in FPGA are presented.In the following chapter, the implementation details of this module are discussed. The architecture and the sub-modules, like delay line unit, calibration and correction unit and data processing unit, are described.In the chapter explaining the experiments, reference clock jitter is measured and analyzed. To demonstrate the least significant bit, precision and linearity, the measurement data of fixed-length cables and phase-variable impulse generator are presented and analyzed. With these data and analysis, it's clear that this design not only meets the requirements specified in my thesis proposal, but also achieves the highest LSB among similar designs.In the last part, features of this module are summarized and some considerations are given to improve this design.