Frequency control

Quartz crystal resonators are used in a wide range of electronic applications that require timing devices. The quality of the quartz crystal blank is critical to the performance of quartz crystal units and the higher the quality factor of quartz, the tighter the stabilities that can be achieved. This is key to ensuring microprocessor timing circuits work correctly within customer’s designs. Quartz crystals are manufactured for frequencies from a few tens of kilohertz to hundreds of megahertz. Over two billion crystals are produced each year. Most are used for consumer devices such as wristwatches, clocks, radios, computers and cell phones. Quartz crystals are also found inside test and measurement equipment, such as counters, signal generators, and oscilloscopes. Electronic oscillators are electronic circuits that generate a continuous periodic waveform. They are also called frequency generators. Their main use is to generate a clock signal of a sine waveform, square waveform, triangle waveform, etc. Yet they can have other uses, like creating the carrier for a frequency or phase modulated signal. There are several types of oscillators, depending on the shape of the output waveform.