Timing inaccuracy of clocks

Since the beginning of time, timing accuracy has been strived for by clock designers. Although everyone has an intuitive sense of what clock accuracy and stability means, there is often an implicit comparison to some sort of assumed reference. In this talk, we will discuss the general notion of oscillator instability and evaluate the oscillator short term instability using a time-variant model which explains the evolution of the physical noise into phase noise in an oscillator. We will examine some of the design implications of such the noise evolution in the oscillator design via some practical examples.