A Physical Sine-to-Square Converter Noise Model

Abstract

While sinusoid signal sources are used whenever low phase noise is required, conversion to a square wave-form is necessary when interfacing with digital circuits. Although have been analyzed a few times in various context, to the best knowledge of the author, there is no complete treatment and explanation of all noise sources within a sine-to-square converter. We attempt to give a quantitative, predictive and physically based noise model of sine-to-square converters without fitting parameters other than those imposed by the circuit itself.