Inside Frequency Control

Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filters offer a reduced size, weight, & cost compared to other filter technologies. However, there are many tradeoffs that need to be considered when selecting a SAW filter for your system design.

What are SAW filters? What are some common SAW filter applications? How are SAW filters used for mobile communications? We'll answer these questions and more in this post.

GPS Disciplined Oscillators (GPSDO) are one of today's most trusted and accurate sources of timing.  These powerful devices (sometimes called GPS clocks) consist of a high-quality stable oscillator and a GPS receiver. The GPSDO works by disciplining (or steering) the oscillator output to a GPS device or GNSS satellite signal via a tracking loop.

A Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) is becoming critical in Department of Defense (DoD) systems. If you're unfamiliar with this critical system design approach (or need a little brush-up) you're in the right place (and should totally keep on reading to discover the 5 core principles).

But first, a few quick basics. MOSA is a business and technical strategy for easily developing new defense systems or modernizing existing ones. This will help the Department of Defense provide joint combat capabilities required for 21st century warfare.

MOSA also provides the ability to support and evolve these 21st century capabilities over their total life-cycle.

The harsh truth is, selecting the wrong quartz crystal oscillator can quickly kill any design. With the wide variety of options and specs available in the market today, selecting the perfect crystal oscillator for your design can be a difficult and time consuming task.

According to Statista,  there is a projected 30 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices to be connected by 2020. That would be over a 400% increase in connected IoT devices from 2014. Most of these IoT devices will need to be connected through at least one type of wireless radio frequency (RF) communication.

The development of crystal oscillators has literally changed the world. Technically that can (and is) said about many things. But think about it! Without crystal oscillators, we may have never seen precision timing in clocks, wide and clear radio broadcasts, or important communication methods within military and space programs.

Imagine how different our world might be without these now commonplace technologies. 

The fall and Halloween season is among us once again. (Finally!)

So yes, we're about to take on the challenge of linking frequency control to Halloween. Can it be done? Maybe. Will it be done? Yes. (We never let the word 'impossible' stop us in the past). 

In this post you're going to discover the dark, creepy side of frequency control by looking at some scary frequency sounds that can be found within our universe. 

When it comes to stratum levels and minimum performance requirements for digital network synchronization, there's definitely a lot to know. A standard first released in 1987 entitled "Synchronization Interface Standards for Digital Networks" from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) lays out all the official information and requirements. 

Building resilience into Global Positioning System (GPS) timing and frequency receivers is crucial in the 21st century. Since the presidential directive on U.S Space-Based Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and Critical Infrastructure Protection (PPD-21), federal agencies have been advancing their efforts when it comes to GPS and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) capabilities. 

In 1994, the world's first digital satellite TV services were launched in Thailand and South Africa. They utilized the newly developed Digital Video Broadcasting Satellite (DVB-S) system.

Over time, DVB-S became the most popular system for delivering digital TV broadcasts. Technology has advanced and spread tremendously since then, which lead to an increased need for advances to the DVB-S system. Thus, the DVB-S2 and DVB-S2X systems were born!

Let's take a look at these two DVB standards and the main differences between them.