Summary:

I carried out some further diagnostics and found some ways in which I could optimize the zero-crossing-counting algorithm, such that the error in the measured frequency is now entirely within the expected range (due to a +-1 clock cycle error in the counting). We can now determine frequencies up to ~60 MHz with less than 1 MHz systematic error and <10 kHz statistical error (fluctuations after the 20 Hz lowpass). This should be sufficient for slow control of the end-laser temperatures.

Details: 

The conclusion from my earleir tests was that there was possibly an improvement that could be made to setting the thresholds for the Schmitt trigger stage in the model. In order to investigate this, I wanted to have a look at the 64K sampled raw input to the ADCs. Yesterday Eric helped me edit the appropriate .par file for viewing these channels for c1x03, and for an input frequency of 70MHz (after division, ~4.3 kHz square wave), the signal looked as expected (top left plot, attachment #1). This prompted me to check the counting algorithm again with the help of various test points I had setup within the model. I found that there was a tendency to under-count the number of clock-cycles between zero-crossings by more than 1 clock cycle, due to the way my code was organized. I fixed this and found that the performance improved dramatically, compared to my previous trials. With the revised counting algortihm, there was at most a +-1 clock cycle error in the counting, and the systematic error between the measured and requested RF frequencies is now completely accounted for taking this consideration into account. The origin of this residual error can be understood by looking at the top right plot in Attachment #1 - presumably because of the effects of some downsampling filter, the input signal to the Schmitt trigger isnt a clean square wave (even at 4kHz) - specifically, the time spent in the LOW and HIGH states of the Schmitt trigger can vary between successive zero crossings because of the shape of the input waveform. As a result, there can be a +-1 clock cycle error in the counting process. Attachment #2 shows this - the red and blue lines envelope the measured frequency for the whole range investigated: 10-70MHz. Attachment #3 shows the systematic error as a function of the requested frequency.

If there was some way to bypass the downsampling filter, perhaps the high-frequency performance could be improved a little.