Abstract: While helping to understand phase noise and jitter of high-performance oscillators, this paper also examines the impact of oscillator phase noise on system performance, underscoring the importance of using ultralow phase noise oscillators in systems.

To an electrical engineer, in an ideal world there would be no noise. But what is noise? What is electrical noise? Or more to the point of this paper: What is phase noise? As engineers, we know intuitively that low noise in a system is better than high noise. However, we must quantify this noise in commonly accepted units. We will also examine the difference in phase noise performance of commodity vs. low-cost, high performance crystal oscillators. Understanding the cost performance trade-offs between oscillators is important to a system design. Many times we see two competitive systems separated widely in performance, but not in price. The oscillator phase noise characteristics will dominate the entire system performance and spending a few more dollars on the oscillator can boost a system's performance.

However, an engineer can easily over-specify the oscillator, and hence the key is to understand exactly how the oscillator phase noise (or jitter) limits the system performance. To help with this understanding, a tutorial on phase noise and jitter is in order.
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Crystek's CVCO55CC-3750-3800 VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) operates from 3750 MHz to 3800 MHz with a control voltage range of 0.5 V ~ 16 V. This VCO features a typical phase noise of -105 dBc/Hz @ 10 kHz offset and has excellent linearity. Output power is typically +2 dBm.

Engineered and manufactured in the USA, the model CVCO55CC-3750-3800 is packaged in the industry-standard 0.5 in x 0.5 in SMD package. Input voltage is 5 V, with a typical current consumption of 30 mA. Pushing and Pulling are minimized to 1.0 MHz/V and 2.5 MHz pk - pk, respectively. Second harmonic suppression is -15 dBc typical... Learn More