White Paper: Characterization Of Gaussian Noise Sources

By Ransom Stephens, Ph.D., Ransom's Notes, and Robert Muro, NoiseCom, Inc.

Key applications in high-rate serial data technologies assume that random jitter (RJ) follows a Gaussian distribution and require that receivers be tested under the stress of a calibrated level of Gaussian RJ. However, the most commonly available noise sources have never been rigorously characterized — until now. We perform a complete statistical analysis of industry-standard noise sources and report on the extent to which the Gaussian assumption is valid.