Gina Roos at Electronic Products talks to Gary Giust at SiTime about the effect of temperature transients on oscillator stability, the importance of frequency vs temperature slope, and the performance of MEMS-based TCXOs compared to quartz-based TCXOs and OCXOs.
SiTime discusses how thermal gradients impact the stability of a precision oscillator and why designers should consider replacing OCXOs with MEMS TCXOs
By Gina Roos, editor-in-chief
SiTime’s Gary Giust, senior manager, product marketing, dispels some misconceptions about OCXO selection for established telecom and networking applications, as well as for emerging technologies like 5G networks, and discusses how thermal gradients impact the stability of a precision oscillator.
Electronic Products: Why is the stability-over-temperature specification misleading in some applications?
Gary Giust: Conventional wisdom might suggest that a designer selects an OCXO for a project based on its banner datasheet specification for frequency stability over temperature. However, this stability-over-temperature specification often serves as a proxy for overall stability. In certain applications, this can be misleading because it fails to capture the stability of an oscillator when placed in a dynamically changing environment.
EP: What specs should designers take a closer look at when working on designs that are sensitive to thermal gradients?
Giust: The frequency-versus-temperature slope of a precision oscillator, also known as dF/dT, is a critical...