TimeLab makes precision time and frequency measurements, including Allan deviation, MDEV, TDEV, phase noise, and phase/frequency drift.

Documentation for TimeLab is coming soon -- for now, see NIST's Handbook of Frequency Stability Analysis for information on various measurements made by TimeLab, as well as W. J. Riley's comprehensive tutorial, Techniques for Frequency Stability Analysis.

Some practical tips for working with TimeLab are also included in the preliminary TimePod 5330A manual.

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Revision History

• Fixed some layout issues with Allan deviation and other numeric tables
• Fixed a bug that could cause invalid characters to appear in the last line of the frequency-count chart
• Keyboard shortcut for Help->Check for updates changed to Ctrl-u
• Font size adjustments are reported on status line
• Improved smoothing of phase noise and AM noise traces

• Added File->Export xDEV trace to save ADEV, MDEV, HDEV, and TDEV traces to a text file as tau, sigma(tau) pairs, one line per bin
• Added File->Save image to clipboard
• Added File->Reset all parameters, options, and settings at next startup
• Allan Deviation and other sigma(tau) charts now use 1-2-4 tau increments for improved readability
• Frequency count charts now use 1-3-10x averaging periods for improved readability
• Unzoomed phase/frequency traces are now rendered with an autoscaled Y axis which is centered at zero
• Improved display performance on slower PCs and laptops
• Font sizes are now scaled based on the desktop DPI setting
• Added Prologix GPIB-USB support option, which can be disabled in serial-compatible acquisition dialogs to allow access to FTDI serial ports
• Added Trace->Show correlation gain for selected noise trace
• Fixed bug that could cause spurious trace-corruption warnings in xDEV views
• Fixed bug that could generate invalid noise floor and spur data when using Trace->Show FFT segment filter slopes
• Installer now places example .tim files in common application data directory for access by all users, rather than local user data directory
• Various minor cosmetic changes

• Expanded auto-scaling capabilities in phase/frequency views, allowing tighter conformance to trace data
• Added Display->Edit colors

• Added File->Export AM/PM noise trace to save noise traces to a text file as offset, dBc/Hz pairs (one line per pixel column)
• Added File->Export AM/PM spur table to save spur tables to a text file as offset, dBc pairs (one line per entry)
• Added File->Export to Stable32 option to pass phase data to Stable32 for offline analysis
• Added support for hardware option codes to TimePod driver
• Temporary files generated by the TSC 51xxA PN driver are now cleaned up when TimeLab exits

• Added driver for GPIB-addressable HP 53131A/53132A and compatible counters
• Added direct COM port support to Acquire->Acquire from counter in talk-only mode
• Added 'Timestamp' data type to talk-only driver to support timestamping counters such as the picPET
• Fixed bug in the HP 5370B driver that could cause crashes with National Instruments GPIB adapters
• The slope direction in the Phase Difference view now matches the sign of the frequency difference, for better compatibility with TSC 5120A and other timing analyzers. As a result, TIC users who need an accurate frequency-count chart will need to use the START channel for the DUT and the STOP channel for the reference.

• TimeLab should now run properly from a standard user account, even if a different administrator account was used to install the program

• Added driver for Stanford Research Systems SR620 counter. Both GPIB and direct RS-232 connections are supported by this driver.
• Text renderer now supports UTF-8 characters
• CyUSB drivers updated from 3.4.4 to 3.4.7

• Added support for attenuators in TimePod hardware, allowing input and reference levels to +20 dBm
• Check for excessive error in user-specified input or reference frequencies
• Added About->Enable debug mode command to allow access to certain test features

• TimePod driver now supports both FPGA and USB firmware updates, via the Utility tab in the acquisition dialog

• Added driver for HP 5335A counter

• Added support for TimePod evaluation licenses

• TimePod driver installation supported for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms

• Native 64-bit executable and .TLL drivers are automatically installed on all Windows x64 systems
• Added Help->Check for updates menu option. TimeLab can be configured to check for new releases on a weekly or monthly basis, every time the program is launched, or only when manually requested. By default, TimeLab will check for updates once per week.