Features and Applications of MEMS VCXOs

VCXOs Voltage Controlled Oscillators have traditionally been used for clock synchronization functions in Telecom, Networking, Wireless and Video applications in equipment such as base stations, core routers, FPGA-based systems, set top boxes and instrumentation / data acquisition equipment. Traditionally, quartz crystal based VCXOs have been the products of choice in such applications, but recently, all-silicon MEMS-based VCXOs have been gaining significant traction.

Silicon MEMS-based VCXOs are 100% pin-for-pin replacement of quartz VCXOs. In addition, they operate in a similar way as the legacy quartz devices, thus ensuring that a quartz VCXO can be replaced by a MEMS VCXO very easily. However, MEMS VCXOs offer some inherent features that are not available from quartz VCXOs. Some of these features are described below.

1) Any frequency from 1 220 MHz with 6 decimal places of accuracy which allows a customer to specify exactly the frequency that they want, receive samples in one week, without a significant cost premium. As an added bonus, these devices can be available in a variety of operating voltages, stabilities and pull ranges. Such combinations of features are not available in quartz VCXOs 2) Pull range linearity of 1%, which improves system lock time and robustness, and simplifies the system PLL design 3) Tuning slope (Kv) consistency which is not available from quartz VCXOs 4) Up to 1600 PPM pull range, which is the highest in the industry 5) Up to 50,000 G of shock and 70 G of vibration resistance, which is not available from quartz. 6) 0.5ps typical RMS integrated phase jitter, which provides adequate system timing margin. Because these MEMS VCXOs have been designed completely in silicon, using traditional analog semiconductor design practices, they can offer such unique features which allow a customer to optimize a product exactly for their design, increase their performance and reliability, without any penalties in availability or cost. Learn more about :- Clock Generator , Silicon Oscillator , Quartz Oscillator , Differential Oscillator