Abstract: Measuring transit time across an asynchronous first-in-first-out (FIFO) memory can include sampling an indication of a value of a read pointer of the FIFO memory at a sampling frequency that exceeds a frequency of a read clock and a write clock of the FIFO memory. An indication of a value of a write pointer of the FIFO memory can be sampled at the sampling frequency. For each sampling period, a measure of occupancy of the FIFO memory can be calculated according to a sampled pair including the indication of the value of the read pointer and the indication of the value of the write pointer. The measure of occupancy can be averaged over a predetermined number of cycles of the sampling frequency. The averaged measure of occupancy can be output as an indication of transit time across the FIFO memory.

Abstract: The apparatus measures timing variations, such as the jitter or wander in a timing signal (100) of a telecommunications network. A recovered clock signal is sampled and digitized to produce a series of digital clock samples which are then processed (135) with reference to a local digital reference signal to produce digital baseband frequency in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components (165, 170) these being further processed (145) to produce the digital phase information of said clock signal to determine (175) the required parameters of the network. The step of digitally processing said clock samples with reference to a local reference signal can be conveniently and cheaply implemented using a digital signal down-converter IC (135), for example of a type existing for digital radio receiver implementations. For jitter measurement, the local reference signal may be generated by a phase-locked loop (as in FIG. 2). For wander measurements an external reference clock is used (as in FIG. 3).

Abstract: Jitter measuring equipment includes timing recovery circuitry with a first filter having a Gaussian-family response to enable the equipment to tolerate relatively long runs of data symbols of a single value without affecting the accuracy of timing of clock recovery. Potential distortion of the jitter measurement which could arise from this amplitude response characteristic is alleviated by applying the demodulated baseband signal, prior to jitter measurement, to a demodulated filter having an amplitude response characteristic that is approximately the inverse of the response of the first filter.

Abstract: The apparatus measures timing variations, such as the jitter or wander in a timing signal (100) of a telecommunications network. A recovered clock signal is sampled and digitised to produce a series of digital clock samples which are then processed (135) with reference to a local digital reference signal to produce digital baseband frequency in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components (165, 170) these being further processed (145) to produce the digital phase information of said clock signal to determine (175) the required parameters of the network. The step of digitally processing said clock samples with reference to a local reference signal can be conveniently and cheaply implemented using a digital signal down-converter IC (135), for example of a type existing for digital radio receiver implementations. For jitter measurement, the local reference signal may be generated by a phase-locked loop (as in FIG. 2). For wander measurements an external reference clock is used (as in FIG. 3).