This thesis presents distinctly different methods of accurately predicting phase noise and absolute jitter in ring oscillators. The phase noise prediction methods are the commercially available SpectreRF and isf_tool, a simulator developed in this work from the Hajimiri and Lee theory of phase noise. Absolute jitter due to deterministic supply and substrate noise is predicted by Spectre time domain simulations and equations developed that can predict the absolute jitter due to a sinusoidal noise source at any frequency. These jitter prediction methods show that ring oscillator circuits respond differently to deterministic noise that is injected symmetrically versus noise that is injected asymmetrically, and a new jitter metric, peak jitter, is developed in this work to characterize absolute jitter caused by deterministic noise sources. These prediction methods are validated with measurements from two test chips with a combined 18 oscillators and 5 distinct architectures, and both are fabricated in the TSMC 0.35μm process. Each prediction method is shown to be consistent with over 2500 phase noise measurements taken from 10 oscillators and 5 architectures and over 1200 absolute jitter measurements due to sinusoidal supply and substrate noise taken from 11 oscillators and 3 architectures. / Graduation date: 2002

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