Jitter

Jitter can be quantified in the same terms as all time-varying signals, e.g., root mean square (RMS), or peak-to-peak displacement.

This unit is useful because it scales with clock frequency and thus allows relatively slow interconnects such as T1 to be compared to higher-speed internet backbone links such as OC-192.

Random jitter typically follows a normal distribution[5][6] due to being caused by thermal noise in an electrical circuit.

In digital antenna arrays ADC and DAC jitters are the important factors determining the direction of arrival estimation accuracy[9] and the depth of jammers suppression.

However, unlike the jitter caused by variation in latency, transmitting in bursts may be seen as a desirable feature,[citation needed] e.g. in variable bitrate transmissions.

Model-based dejittering study has been carried out under the framework of digital image and video restoration.

Higher clock frequencies have commensurately smaller eye openings, and thus impose tighter tolerances on jitter.

For example, modern computer motherboards have serial bus architectures with eye openings of 160 picoseconds or less.

This is extremely small compared to parallel bus architectures with equivalent performance, which may have eye openings on the order of 1000 picoseconds.

A less direct approach—in which analog waveforms are digitized and the resulting data stream analyzed—is employed when measuring pixel jitter in frame grabbers.

AJCs operate by re-timing the output pulses so they align more closely to an idealized clock.

In the context of packet-switched networks, the term packet delay variation is often preferred over jitter.

The adaptation logic is based on the jitter estimates computed from the arrival characteristics of the media packets.

Adjustments associated with adaptive de-jittering involves introducing discontinuities in the media play-out which may be noticeable to the listener or viewer.

[18] A jitter signal can be decomposed into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), which can be further applied for filtering or dejittering.