The Advantages of Using Quartz Crystal Oscillators
The Advantages of Using Quartz Crystal Oscillators
If you need a timing component for your circuit board, you likely have several requirements. First, it’s important to ensure that your frequency-generating oscillator is readily available in large quantities and offers significant quality at a reasonable cost. You need to ensure your product gets to market on time and under budget, so you can continue to design and earn contracts.
Second, you likely have a list of parameters that are specific to the product you want to design. At what frequency does it need to operate? Does your application require an extended temperature range or an exceptionally tight stability to ensure there are no disruptions in communication? The wide variety of oscillators and their characteristics are as numerous as the many industries that use them.
Keeping this in mind, when you have several parameters and expectations for your design, relying on quartz is a safe solution. Why? Because crystal oscillators offer exceptional advantages that other oscillators can’t provide.
Why Other Resonators Don’t Measure Up to Quartz
Before the benefits of quartz crystal oscillators are described, it’s important to know what other frequency solutions exist and what makes them inferior. The following resonators – surfaces that can generate a frequency – do offer some benefits to engineers, but not at the level of quartz.
- Ceramic resonators are a unique technology that use a cavity to create desired frequencies. If your application doesn’t require a very stable frequency, ceramic resonators could work. However, for more stable frequency solutions ceramic should be avoided.
- Surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators filter out frequencies you don’t want, while transmitting the frequency you do. SAWs provide a good frequency solution with one important caveat: compensations need to be included in your design to make them work as well as quartz crystal. When comparing quartz with SAWs, engineers recognize that it’s far more cost effective and logical to go with what works, as opposed to what works when it is accommodated with additional engineering. There’s no sense in buying a product that requires the purchase of additions, so it can work as well as a product that has no such requirements.
- Of the primary three alternatives to quartz crystal, microelectromechanical products (MEMs) are possibly the closest competitors. However, they are not widely available. Additionally, their primary benefit – that they ultimately outperform quartz – doesn’t yield significant results until a period of time that is well after the application in which they are included is no longer useful. The same argument is relevant for claims that MEMs are far more durable. MEMs’ durability may be useful in a product that will withstand extreme circumstances. However, on the whole, a readily available product that will last for the lifespan of your product is a much better choice.
Why Quartz is King
Quartz – a resonating surface used in an oscillator to create a frequency – offers characteristics that other resonating surfaces simply can’t replicate, whether you’re considering price, quality, availability, or performance.
Here are the top six advantages of selecting quartz crystal for your oscillator:
- Quartz is very available – it is the second most abundant mineral on Earth.
- Quartz creates an extremely clean signal for your frequency-based application.
- Quartz products can be designed to meet a variety of frequency needs, including extended temperature ranges, low power consumption, low jitter, and outstanding frequency stability.
- Quartz crystal oscillators are used in many key industries, including Internet of Things (IoT), networking and communication, medical equipment, and much more.
- Quartz is extremely durable and can even be ruggedized to meet automakers’ requirements.
- Exceptional manufacturers of quartz oscillators exist today, and these global companies offer customizable and superior quartz products that help engineers to effectively create their designs. When you purchase from an authorized dealer of premier quartz crystal oscillators you not only get the best technology – you also discover the wide range of resources at your disposal.
Go with Quartz for Major Performance Benefits and the Supportive Engineering Community Behind Them
Many more advantages exist for quartz, and these are most apparent when you select a crystal oscillator from a high-quality manufacturer.
When you partner with a company that specializes in these products, you can find options that perfectly fit your needs. What’s more, this technology has been around long enough that your manufacturer will also provide unparalleled support – including testing and troubleshooting – to ensure your success.
When you decide to use quartz crystal for your timing solution, you get the many benefits of this product, while also joining an engineering family. The work of engineering can be challenging; therefore, the ability to acquire great frequency products backed by a supportive ethos is priceless.
With a solid foundation in technology, backed by a BIT degree, Lucas Noah has carved a niche for himself in the world of content creation and digital storytelling. Currently lending his expertise to Creative Outrank LLC and Oceana Express LLC, Lucas has become a... Read more