
HA7062D Manual Rev 1.01
www.holzworth.com
Page 18 of 105
7.9 CROSS CORRELATION SNR (xCorr SNR)
The HA7062D Application GUI calculates a 'xCorr SNR' trace for all cross correlation
measurements. This appears as a shaded trace/area on the plot and is shown in the figures below.
The xCorr SNR trace shows the degree to which cross correlation has improved a measurement
and provides a confidence interval by displaying measurement margin.
When the measured trace is approximately the same as the shaded trace, more cross correlations
will improve the measurement. When the measured noise is significantly higher than the shaded
trace, there is no benefit to increasing the number of correlations.
The two measurements above show the effect of increasing the number of cross correlations on the
xCorr SNR trace when measuring a low noise OCXO.
7.9.1 INSTRUMENT NOISE FLOOR vs. xCORR SNR
In theory, the xCorr SNR should be similar to the measured noise floor of the instrument for the
same (or similar) carrier frequency. However, measurement conditions may vary significantly from
the optimal conditions in which Holzworth measures the noise floor, and thus the xCorr SNR may
vary significantly. External/environmental factors may influence the measured noise and the xCorr
SNR, so ultimately the xCorr SNR is used to show measurement margin for the specific
measurement, but it is not used to determine the true noise floor of the instrument.
Figure 1
100MHz OCXO, 10 xCorr
Figure 2
100MHz OCXO, 100 xCorr