2. Phase noise measurement

2.1 General

The characterization of frequency in the spectral domain requires a number of specific measuring instruments, in addition to the meters we have just studied for characterization in the time domain. A signal is characterized either :

• by its power spectral density (PSD) of phase fluctuations ;

• by its DSP of frequency fluctuations (if the signal carrier frequency is specified);

• by the PSD of relative frequency fluctuations.

In this way, we lose the notion of absolute frequency values, unlike the time domain, where we measure mean frequency values, variance and drift. The phase noise measurement technique lends itself well to characterizing...