5.16 Crystal Oscillator

The recommended crystal frequency is 14.7456 MHz, but any crystal frequency in the range 4 to 20 MHz can be used. Using a crystal frequency different from 14.7456 MHz might in some applications give degraded performance. The crystal frequency is used as reference for the data rate (as well as other internal functions) and in the 4 to 20 MHz range the frequencies 4.9152, 7.3728, 9.8304, 12.2880, 14.7456, 17.2032, 19.6608 MHz will give accurate data rates as shown in Table 5-4 and an IF frequency of 307.2 kHz. The crystal frequency will influence the programming of the CLOCK_A, CLOCK_B and MODEM registers.

An external clock signal or the internal crystal oscillator can be used as main frequency reference. An external clock signal should be connected to XOSC_Q1, while XOSC_Q2 should be left open. The XOSC_BYPASS bit in the INTERFACE register should be set to ‘1’ when an external digital rail-to-rail clock signal is used. No DC block should be used then. A sine with smaller amplitude can also be used. A DC blocking capacitor must then be used (10 nF) and the XOSC_BYPASS bit in the INTERFACE register should be set to ‘0’. For input signal amplitude, see Section 4.8.

Using the internal crystal oscillator, the crystal must be connected between the XOSC_Q1 and XOSC_Q2 pins. The oscillator is designed for parallel mode operation of the crystal. In addition, loading capacitors (C4 and C5) for the crystal are required. The loading capacitor values depend on the total load capacitance, C_L , specified for the crystal. The total load capacitance seen between the crystal terminals should equal C_L for the crystal to oscillate at the specified frequency.

Equation 33.

The parasitic capacitance is constituted by pin input capacitance and PCB stray capacitance. Total parasitic capacitance is typically 8 pF. A trimming capacitor may be placed across C5 for initial tuning if necessary.

The crystal oscillator circuit is shown in Figure 5-30. Typical component values for different values of C_L are given in Table 5-15.

The crystal oscillator is amplitude regulated. This means that a high current is required to initiate the oscillations. When the amplitude builds up, the current is reduced to what is necessary to maintain approximately 600 mVpp amplitude. This ensures a fast start-up, keeps the drive level to a minimum and makes the oscillator insensitive to ESR variations. As long as the recommended load capacitance values are used, the ESR is not critical.

The initial tolerance, temperature drift, aging and load pulling should be carefully specified in order to meet the required frequency accuracy in a certain application. By specifying the total expected frequency accuracy in SmartRF™ Studio together with data rate and frequency separation, the software will estimate the total bandwidth and compare to the available receiver channel filter bandwidth. The software will report any contradictions and a more accurate crystal will be recommended if required.

Figure 5-30 Crystal Oscillator Circuit