Q) How do you introduce jitter in the simulation? I notice that for jitter due to supply variation, some people input a square wave of a particular frequency and amplitude with certain rise/fall time. Does it matter much the frequency of the square wave? A: There are many jitter sources that you may add to your simulations. In my BEHAVIORAL simulator, I add noise at the reference, reference divider, phase detector, charge pump, low-pass filter caps, VCO, and feedback divider. Basically, I add noise to every component. Since I use the behavioral simulator primarily to determine loop behavior, the most important noise source is the reference. The noise sources may be random (Gaussian), sine, square, or piece-wise linear. In circuit simulation (spice), I focus on supply noise because this is the noise source that I'm working hardest to reject. If I were to run only one closed-loop simulation, then I'd add a square wave to VDD at the natural frequency of the PLL since the PLL tends to over-compensate (peak) at this frequency. 1) The sharp edge (~ 1 ns) of the square wave tends to create worst-case VCO period jitter. 2) The square waves's long high time allows the resulting change in VCO frequency (due to dVDD) to accumulate as phase error. 3) The modulation at the natural frequency tends to excite the PLL's peaking. If you allow me to run one more closed-loop spice simulation, then I'll use a piece-wise linear function to delay the reference by almost one reference period AFTER the PLL has locked. I'll watch how the PLL reacts to this instantaneous phase step, looking for 1) max amount of VCO overshoot 2) min amount of VCO undershoot 3) time to re-lock 4) number of control voltage oscillations before re-locking. I can estimate the natural frequency and damping factor from these simulation results.