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What size is the jitter of the cronologic TDCs?
Jitter refers to the deviation in the time it takes for data to arrive at each time window. It is often assumed that the jitter is at the FWMH value of 2 bins. This is not the case with our high-end TDCs, as here jitter is not the limiting factor. Our high-end TDCs, such as xHPTDC8 and xTDC4 are realized using dedicated ASICs that ensure a controlled and highly uniform bin size. Consequently, here residual jitter contributions are substantially smaller than the inherent quantization error. For short time intervals, the measurement uncertainty is therefore predominantly governed by the bin size.
Double-pulse resolution is an important specification for most applications and is the limiting factor in terms of resolution. However, this is not directly related to the jitter of our measurement cards. Accordingly, the RMS error is so small that we do not consider it to be significant. See also: bin-size, jitter, and RMS.
Please note: There are TDCs on the market that, unlike chronologic TDCs, are based on an FPGA-implemented carry chain design and therefore have a kind higher jitter that is significantly above the digital resolution. In this case, the time jitter is the limiting factor for the usable resolution of the TDC.