feature article
Subscribe Now

Bondage & Discipline

Begging for More Accuracy from your Timing Chain?

We’re all slaves to time; some more than others. Come, slave, it’s time to submit to a new form of discipline. 

Hardcore readers will recall fondly our November article on Symmetricom, the company that whips time into shape, beating it into submission for the satisfaction of embedded designers everywhere. The House of Intervallic Domination now has a new offering: a GPS Disciplined Oscillator (GPSDO) that is more, shall we say, obedient than standard oscillators.

What’s a disciplined oscillator? Were the other oscillators too… naughty? Perhaps they were, but the electrifying thrill of a disciplined oscillator is the way it maintains its iron-fisted stability under punishing conditions. When your GPS reception is poor, most oscillators succumb but the GPSDO’s “holdover” capability keeps a tight clamp on the clock and frequency signals, administering its mastery over synchronization.

These are board-level products, unlike Symmetricom’s dominant chip-scale atomic clocks, and therefore they appeal to customers with different tastes. “For systems that require an embedded GPSDO… [the modules] reduce design time and risk compared to developing a custom solution,” says the company’s manager of S&M (sales and marketing).

The catalog is studded with a half dozen variations of the GPSDO, so you can get it any way you want it. If you’re on a painfully tight budget, there’s the GPS-500, which uses a 10-MHz oven-controlled crystal oscillator (OXCO) to squeeze maximum performance from a small, tightly constrained space. If that doesn’t satisfy your special needs, the GPS-2000 adds the crowd-pleasing daisy-chain capability and five independent outputs to gratify the most demanding designer.

If you wish to submit to the ultimate in clock discipline, the GPS-2750 is right up your alley. It uses a chip-scale atomic clock, so its output is veritably handcuffed to GPS time, with holdover over a 24-hour period quivering by less than a microsecond. It also bravely endures agonizing temperature extremes from ?40°C to +85°C. All while maintaining a discreetly low profile of just 0.7 inches.

Disciplined oscillators aren’t for everyone. For those who like that kind of thing – and you know who you are – the GPSDO goes straight to the pain points for designers forced to obey strict standards for precision. Symmetricom has worked the kinks out, loosening the velvet rope across the path to high-accuracy timing. Now we can all go hell-for-leather toward the dream of more accurate timing chains. 

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Dec 1, 2023
Why is Design for Testability (DFT) crucial for VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design? Keeping testability in mind when developing a chip makes it simpler to find structural flaws in the chip and make necessary design corrections before the product is shipped to users. T...
Nov 27, 2023
See how we're harnessing generative AI throughout our suite of EDA tools with Synopsys.AI Copilot, the world's first GenAI capability for chip design.The post Meet Synopsys.ai Copilot, Industry's First GenAI Capability for Chip Design appeared first on Chip Design....
Nov 6, 2023
Suffice it to say that everyone and everything in these images was shot in-camera underwater, and that the results truly are haunting....

featured video

TDK CLT32 power inductors for ADAS and AD power management

Sponsored by TDK

Review the top 3 FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) regarding TDK’s CLT32 power inductors. Learn why these tiny power inductors address the most demanding reliability challenges of ADAS and AD power management.

Click here for more information

featured webinar

Rapid Learning: Purpose-Built MCU Software Tools for Data-Driven Embedded IoT Systems

Sponsored by ITTIA

Are you developing an MCU application that captures data of all kinds (metrics, events, logs, traces, etc.)? Are you ready to reduce the difficulties and complications involved in developing an event- and data-centric embedded system? This webinar will quickly introduce you to excellent MCU-specific software options for developing your next-generation data-driven IoT systems. You will also learn how to recognize and overcome data management obstacles. Register today as seats are limited!

Register Now!

featured chalk talk

Spectral and Color Sensors
Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and ams OSRAM
There has been quite a bit of advancement in the world of spectrometers of the last several years. In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton and Jim Archibald from ams OSRAM investigate how multispectral sensing solutions are driving innovation in a variety of different fields. They also explore the functions involved with multispectral sensing, the details of ams OSRAM’s AS7343 spectral sensor, and why smoke detection is a great application for this kind of multispectral sensing.
Mar 6, 2023
32,711 views