The Modulo Time Plot - A Useful Data Acquisition Diagnostic Tool

This paper illustrates the use of the Modulo Time Plot to facilitate diagnosis of data acquisition systems and components. While conventional techniques, involving spectral analysis and histograms, provide certain useful and necessary measures of performance, the use of reordered sample sets has gained considerable popularity in recent work aimed at characterizing analog-to-digital converter error mechanisms. Examples show that the Modulo Time Plot is useful for quick visual inspection of system performance including dynamic range, distortion and error plots, the detection of random bit errors, and timing errors between the test signal and the sample clock.