[time-nuts] Thought experiment on a low cost timing board

Magnus Danielson cfmd at bredband.net
Sat Feb 25 06:09:55 EST 2006


From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Thought experiment on a low cost timing board
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 10:45:54 +0000
Message-ID: <4136.1140864354 at critter.freebsd.dk>

Poul-Henning,

> Another thing you have to be aware of is something called
> 'meta-stability' when you latch a signal in one synchronous clock
> domain on a signal which is not in that domain.  The usual trick
> is to synchronize the external signal to the clockdomain through a
> sequence (2-3) of latches.  (the delay is constant and known, so
> it can be handled in software).

The trick here is to sample-in the trigger signal into the clock of the
counters and then the counters is locked into a set of flip-flop synchronously
in that clock domain. Thus registers can then be read in another clock-domain
(the PCI bus clock), but best is naturally to re-clock it again in the same
fashion.

> Consider adding a D/A converter for tweaking OCXO.  Using the two-tier
> trick which SRS uses in the PRS10 may be a good and cheap way.

two-tier trick? Lacking the PRS10 schematics/service manuals...

Cheers,
Magnus




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