[time-nuts] Digital Mixing with a BeagleBone Black and D Flip Flop

Robert Darby bobdarby at triad.rr.com
Sun Oct 12 08:35:50 EDT 2014


Bruce,

Thanks, I recall the thread from reading the digests.  The CERN code is 
wonderfully compact but not immediately obvious to a novice to VHDL.  
Perhaps one day the light will come on.

Bob
On 10/12/2014 12:27 AM, Bruce Griffiths wrote:
> Original thread on DDMTD in 2008:
> https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2008-December/034955.html
>
> Later comment on using a shift register to
> minimise metastability issues:
> https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2011-August/058648.html
>
> Bruce
>
> On Sunday, October 12, 2014 12:14:27 AM Robert Darby wrote:
>> Bob Camp,
>>
>> Bob, Simon is talking about the sampler versus a true mixer.  This is
>> the idea I asked you about some months ago when I asked about how
> the
>> digital filter functions.  You were kind to explain the filter method in
>> terms of  buckets. You are of course correct that the resolution is low,
>> 100 ns for a 10 MHz DUT with a 10 Hz frequency offset but the hetrodyne
>> factor takes the theoretical resolution to 100 fs.  That's not shabby
>> for a very low cost DDMTD.  And of course, the actual noise floor will
>> not be close to this but potentially it's better than a 5370 and a lot
>> easier to maintain. :o)
>>
>> Simon,
>>
>> I have a 4 channel 1 ns tagger "working" but I can't successfully link
>> the FTDI library to a c program so doing this in hardware looks far more
>> attractive to me.  Here's how I see it at this point:
>>
>> -- Objective:
>> --        A four channel DDMTD with 44 bit time tags delivered over the
>> USB port
>> --        At least 100 Hz beat frquency on each channel
>> --        The hardware is capable of much higher rates but increasing
>> the beat frequency offset
>> --            degrades resolution and realistically the device will
>> probably be used at 5 or 10 Hz
>> --
>> -- Additional Hardware Required:
>> --        A "wing" with three or five LTC6957-1 low phase noise buffers
>> to convert sine inputs into
>> --            high speed low-jitter square waves using LVPECL
>> differential outputs
>> --        Either an oscillator offset by the beat frequency or a DDS
>> frequency generator
>> --        A USB equipped computer
>> --
>> --Architecture
>> --        Differential inputs are fed to the master clock, thence to the
>> D flip-flops clocks
>> --        Differential inputs for each channel are fed to the data
>> inputs for each flip-flop
>> --        The master clock drives a 44 bit counter which is common to
>> all four channels
>> --        Each channel has two independent counters, provisionally 14
>> bit, designated high and low
>> --        The low counter first establishes a low state without
>> transitions i.e. it times out
>> --        After the low counter times out, the flip-flop is armed
>> --        The first high output at q resets and starts both high and low
>> counters - whichever counts depends on whether q is high or low
>> --        Every time the high and low counters match we store the 44 bit
>> count; each new match replaces the previous one
>> --        At some point (2^14 highs) the high counter will roll over -
>> hopefully low will have stopped counting much earlier
>> --        The highest stored match should meet the equal count criteria
>> as described in the P. Moreira and I. Darwazeh paper
>> --        Since there are four channels it will be necessary to
>> multiplex the time tags into the fifo
>> --        The multiplexer will add 1 bit per channel for one-hot channel
>> id coding
>> --        The 48 bits will clock into a 48 bit to 8 bit fifo thence to
>> an 8 bit USB port
>>
>> I believe you can have multiple points where the two counts match but I
>> don't have any data to confirm that. I played with this in excel and
>> when you feed it ones and zeros in a distribution that "looks" like the
>> typical  output out of a digital sampler it is possible to get multiple
>> matches.  My intention is to go with the last crossing and the scheme
>> mentioned above does this rather trivially. Unless, of course, I'm
>> missing something and I usually do.
>>
>> I've got a Pipistrello board and it has the option of an asynchronous
>> fifo USB interface; since I've already paid my dues on that I'll just
>> use that code again.  The data rate is so low that snail mail would
>> work.  The computer gets a series of time tags and your program has to
>> pair up the channels to get the deltas.  Getting time tags lets you
>> compare three or four devices simultaneously and facilitates
>> three-cornered hat calculations.  I suspect that's a lot easier to say
>> than do but we'll cross that bridge if we ever get there. Also time tags
>> permit continuous sampling; there's no counter dead-time which I think
>> can be an issue when it causes variable data sampling rates.
>>
>> Bob Camp mention Collins low jitter hard limiters but I suspect that's
>> much more of an issue on the very shallow slopes you see on 5 or 10 Hz
>> mixer outputs.  The LTC6957 is probably overkill on 10 MHz inputs but I
>> believe they're a tad better than a 74AC gate, but then again maybe not
>> all that much better.  Lot more expensive.  Bob C discussed sine to
>> square conversion in a recent post (IIRC) perhaps in connection with 5V
>> to 3.3V conversion, and for a low cost solution the 74AC gate looks
>> pretty good and they're easy to dead bug.
>>
>> I'm out of spit. Later
>>
>> bob
>>
>> On 10/11/2014 9:17 PM, Bob Camp wrote:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> Ok, a little more data:
>>>
>>> You can hook your flip flop up as a sampler or as a full blown mixer.
>>> Hooked up as a full blown mixer, you get the 20 MHz and 10 Hz signals.
>>> You also get more resolution on the 10 Hz. Either way, the 10 Hz is still
>>> a beat note. In the case of a sampler, the filter is there for edge
>>> jitter.
>>>
>>> With a sampler, your data is only modulo 100 ns. With a 100 ms beat
> note
>>> period, you only get 1x10^-6 at best. That’s very different than what
> you
>>> get with the same chip used as a mixer (or an XOR gate). The true
> mixer
>>> connection gives you data the instant the edge changes. The sampler
> goes
>>> to sleep and lets you know up to 100 ns later ...
>>>
>>> Bob
>>>
>>> On Oct 11, 2014, at 6:31 PM, Simon Marsh
> <subscriptions at burble.com> wrote:
>>>> I (mostly) understand this when considering an analogue mixer, but
> I'm
>>>> lost on whether there are any similar effects going on with a digital
>>>> signal ?
>>>>
>>>> TBH, I'm not really sure 'mixing' is the right phrase in the digital
>>>> case, and my apologies if I got that wrong.
>>>>
>>>> What's actually going on is sampling one (digital) signal at a rate
> close
>>>> to the signal frequency. This gives a vernier effect and the result is a
>>>> purely digital set of pulses at the beat frequency, aligned to when
> the
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