What are you looking for?
Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) is a crystal oscillator that improves frequency stability through temperature compensation technology. Its core goal is to offset the crystal resonant frequency drift caused by ambient temperature changes and make the output frequency more stable.
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Core working principle |
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Temperature sensing and feedback |
TCXO integrates a temperature sensor (such as a thermistor or digital temperature sensor) to monitor ambient temperature changes in real time and convert the temperature signal into an electrical signal. |
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Compensation Circuit Operation |
The temperature signal is input to the compensation circuit, which calculates the frequency deviation value corresponding to the current temperature according to a preset algorithm (such as polynomial fitting or table lookup method) and generates a corresponding compensation voltage (VC). |
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Voltage frequency correction |
The compensation voltage is applied to the varactor diode of the voltage-controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO) to fine-tune the resonant frequency of the crystal by changing the diode capacitance value, thereby offsetting the frequency deviation caused by temperature. |
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Key technical features |
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Analog compensation |
Based on thermistor networks, low cost but limited accuracy. |
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Digital compensation (DTCXO) |
Using MCU and digital temperature sensor, through table lookup or algorithm compensation, the accuracy is higher (up to ±0.1 ppm). |
Application scenarios:
TCXO is widely used in:
Communication equipment (4G/5G base stations, satellite communications)
Navigation and positioning (GPS, Beidou modules)
Precision instruments (spectrum analyzers, medical equipment)
IoT terminals (low-power sensors, wearable devices)
