The Eye Diagram

The eye diagrams shown below identify key eye diagram definitions.

1 Zero Level Zero Level is a measure of the mean value of the logical 0 of an eye diagram.

2 One Level One Level is a measure of the mean value of the logical 1 of an eye diagram.

Rise time is a measure of the transition time of the data from the 10% level to the 90% level on the upward
3 Rise Time
slope of an eye diagram.

Fall time is a measure of the transition time of the data from the 90% level to the 10% level on the
4 Fall Time
downward slope of an eye diagram.

Eye height is a measure of the vertical opening of an eye diagram. An ideal eye opening would be measured
from the one level to the zero level. However, noise on the eye will cause the eye to close. The eye height
measurement determines eye closure due to noise.

5 Eye Height

6 Eye Width Eye width is a measure of the horizontal opening of an eye diagram. Ideally, the eye width would be
measured between the crossing points of the eye. However, jitter may appear on the waveform and influence
 the eye opening. A preference setting determines exactly how this measurement is made. Learn more.

Deterministic Deterministic jitter is the deviation of a transition from its ideal time caused by reflections relative to other
7
Jitter transitions.

Eye Eye amplitude is the difference between the logic 1 level and the logic 0 level histogram mean values of an
8
Amplitude eye diagram.

Bit rate (data rate) is the inverse of bit period (1 / bit period). The bit period is a measure of the horizontal
9 Bit Rate
opening of an eye diagram at the crossing points of the eye.

10 Two-Level Two-Level is a measure of the mean value of the logical 2 of a PAM4 eye diagram.

11 Three-Level Three-Level is a measure of the mean value of the logical 3 of a PAM4 eye diagram.

There are many measurements that can be obtained from an eye diagram:[4]
Amplitude measurements

 Eye amplitude
 Eye crossing amplitude
 Eye crossing percentage
 Eye height
 Eye level
 Eye signal-to-noise ratio
 Quality factor
 Vertical eye opening

Time measurements
 Deterministic jitter
 Eye crossing time
 Eye delay
 Eye fall time
 Eye rise time
 Eye width
 Horizontal eye opening
 Peak-to-peak jitter
 Random jitter
 RMS jitter
 CRC jitter
 Total jitter

Interpreting measurementsEdit

Eye-diagram feature What it measures

 Additive noise in
Eye opening (height, peak to peak) the signal

Peak distortion due

Eye overshoot/undershoot to interruptions in
the signal path

Timing
Eye width synchronization
& jitter effects

Intersymbol
Eye closure interference,
additive noise

Constructing the eye diagram

The ideal digital waveform is square and is all right-angles. The red
diagram below shows three bit ideal periods (T) or Unit Intervals (UI).
The digital values are 0, 1, 1.

But real life digital signals don’t look like this. The waveforms get
stretched, rounded and elongated. My waveform diagrams below
aren’t totally accurate, but hopefully they’ll help you grok the concepts.

Let’s look at some other bit patterns. Here in green we have 1, 1, 0

pattern.

And the blue one here is a 1,0,0 pattern.

And finally a 0,0,1 in orange.

Putting it all together

The eye diagram is a pattern resulting from overlaying thousands of
these permutations. The simplified view below shows what happened
when you line up and overlay just four samples. Okay it’s not a
complete match for the first diagram as it’s a bit too uniform, but we’re
getting there.
An eye diagram is used in electrical engineering to get a good idea of signal
quality in the digital domain. To generate a waveform analogous to an eye
diagram, we can apply infinite persistence to various analog signals a well as to
quasi-digital signals such as square wave and pulse as synthesized by an
arbitrary frequency generator (AFG).
Here, the bit sequences 011, 001, 100, and 110 are superimposed over one another to
obtain the example eye diagram.

The eye diagram takes its name from the fact that it has the appearance of a
human eye. It is created simply by superimposing successive waveforms to
form a composite image. The eye diagram is used primarily to look at digital
signals for the purpose of recognizing the effects of distortion and finding its
source.

To demonstrate using a Tektronix MDO3104 oscilloscope, we connect the AFG

output on the back panel to an analog input channel on the front panel and
press AFG so a sine wave displays. Then we press Acquire. From the menu
across the bottom, we press the soft key that corresponds to Waveform
Display. On the right, we use Multipurpose Knob a to set the oscilloscope for
infinite persistence. We see displayed a succession of waveforms one upon
another.

It is a simple matter to probe different locations in a circuit, looking at the eye

diagram, to localize any problems. For example, if a run of cable were to have a
fault caused by pinch or kink, eye diagrams observed at both ends would differ,
and the cable could be repaired or more likely the entire run could be replaced.

Ideally, the eye diagram for digital signals would consist of two parallel lines
with an instantaneous rise and fall times virtually invisible. In the real world,
even a reasonably good and quite acceptable digital signal will exhibit some
amount of amplitude and timing variation, which will show up as discrete lines
that are not exactly where they belong but will nonetheless suffice. If there are
enough of them, darkened areas will appear.
As far as identifying damaging anomalies, this is all a matter of degree. There is
no substitute for looking at eye diagrams of existing known good signals. A
good plan would be to save in flash drives eye diagrams from signals taken at
various points in properly functioning digital equipment.

It is important to realize what is shown in an eye diagram and what is not

shown. In digital transmission, a succession of ones and zeroes flows to the
receiver. The transmission can consist of a long series of ones, a long series of
zeroes, a regular or irregular sequence that repeats periodically, a quasi-
random series or any combination. The eye diagram will reveal whether
everything works as intended or if there are faults that garble the transmission,
causing, for example, the reception of a zero when a one has been sent.

The eye diagram will not reveal whether an incorrect logic state has been sent
through a programming error or hardware fault. However, this does not apply
where certain tests are being made, as when a transmission pattern is known at
both ends.

Eye diagram analysis yields impressive amounts of information. Eye diagram

analysis is valuable in design, debugging, and maintenance. As the frequency
rises, new issues emerge. Transmission line phenomena must be understood
and confronted, especially regarding impedance matching. Slight manufacturing
and installation errors degrade characteristic impedance, and the resulting data
reflections and collisions increase the percentage of error. Even slight PCB
trace misdesign or construction error can bring down an entire network. The
most viable method for identifying and locating such faults is by comparing
before and after (with respect to the data stream) eye diagrams.

Infinite persistent as applied to an analog waveform.

When the flow is controlled by a clock, the oscilloscope can generate an eye
diagram by overlaying successive segments. Triggering may occur on rising or
falling edges. The resulting eye diagram will deviate to a greater or lesser
degree from the rectangular box that would correspond to a perfect
transmission.

The top bar in an eye diagram is the result of discrete high logic states that
coincide vertically but not horizontally. Overlapping low logic states create the
continuous bottom bar. Those ubiquitous Xs that are a familiar feature of eye
diagrams are due to rising and falling edges that are superimposed at regular
intervals.

High-speed digital transmission is characterized by the introduction into the

signal of jitter. It is to be expected that an electronic signal will be periodic to a
certain extent. Jitter is the deviation from this periodicity and as such it is
harmful in terms of signal fidelity. What appears at the receiving end is not true
to the intent at the transmission end when there is any degree of jitter. This
applies to amplitude, frequency and phase. Accordingly we may define jitter as
a kind of timing error, a consequence of rise and fall time error. Needless to
say, jitter shows up plainly in an eye diagram. The bottom line on jitter is that it
comes into being from a combination of interference among symbols, crosstalk,
reflections, thermal effects and various random phenomena that are
omnipresent in electronic systems.

A higher bit rate always translates to a vertically smaller eye opening.

Concurrently, timing error as manifested in jitter comprises a larger fraction of
the waveform, so we may look for more data errors.

Poor terminations at media ends increase the number of data reflections, a fact
also revealed in the appearance of the eye diagram. Lines which should follow
a single path become more separated, resulting in a chaotic appearance in the
eye diagram, a sure sign that there are problems in the system.

Eye diagram analysis is not the same as a bit error rate investigation, but the
two techniques are often used in conjunction.

Bit error rate (BER) is calculated as the number of bit errors per unit of time. Bit
synchronization errors are a factor, as well as distortion, interference and noise.
BER is usually expressed as a percentage. It can be automatically detected and
displayed in an alphanumeric readout, so this metric can be checked and
logged in the course of routine maintenance inspections, often pointing to
developing problems preceding an actual outage.

Closely related is the packet error rate (PER). A packet is considered incorrect
if it contains one or more invalid bits. Frames, blocks and symbols are subject
to similar analysis. In wireless transmission, BER may be related to adverse
weather conditions or odd causes such as seasonal leaving out of deciduous
trees impacting the signal path.

The quality of signal transmission can be checked by means of a bit error ratio
tester (BERT), which is a portable instrument used to measure the effects of
noise, distortion, etc. Incorporated within this instrument are a pattern
generator, error detector, clock signal generator to synchronize these blocks, a
digital communication analyzer for displaying transmitted and received signals,
and equipment that performs electrical-to-optical and optical-to-electrical
conversion.

The most common method of signal discrimination is for the receiving end to
determine at a particular moment whether the incoming signal is higher or lower
than a specified voltage level. This determines whether the received signal is
logic high or logic low.

The point of demarcation may be moved about on the waveform. The usual
solution is to place it away from high level, low level, rising edge or falling edge.
That way it will be near the center of the eye where it can be readily identified.

As an experimental tool for evaluating devices, circuits, equipment or entire

networks, the eye diagram is superb because it shows the total effect of any
noise or waveform due to intersymbol interference or EMI effects. Moreover,
these disturbances can be localized by observing changes in the eye pattern as
the probing is moved about. Changes in cable routing and characteristic
impedance adjustments will suggest themselves as eye patterns are studied.