Distributed DDS in a White Rabbit Network: An IEEE 1588 application

Abstract

Direct Digital frequency Synthesizers (DDS) require a reference local oscillator (LO) to synthesize waveforms with various frequencies. The output clock inherits to a certain degree the frequency stability of the LO. However, very stable clocks, as those generated from atomic standards, employ a prohibitive price to have as LO. In this paper, a system architecture that distributes a frequency reference to multiple slave receivers using the White Rabbit Network is presented. The system architecture aims to be a competitive solution to distribute frequency references over large distances. In addition, the non-ideality of the different system elements as well as the receiver frequency impairments are studied with the view to assess their influence on the quality of the distributed clock.