A brief view of the current state of the development and aging performance of fixed frequency surface acoustic wave (SAW) Oscillator

The recent rapid expansion of optical fiber networking market fuels the demand for accurate 100~400 MHz fixed frequency oscillators based on surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology. Nowadays, several suppliers can offer small size and cost efficient SMD single-end and differential SAW oscillators (SOs) with very good phase jitter performance. Selective customers prefer SO solution as it is free of the unsettling problems from some crystal oscillator (XO) solutions- high cost of high frequency fundamental (HFF) and inverted mesa (IM) crystal blanks, spurious modes, frequency jumping, drive level sensitivity, high cost of phase lock loop (PLL) die, etc. This paper is to provide a brief view of the current state of the development of fixed frequency SOs. Based on the aging data of more than 20,000 hours at 125°C, the authors also comment on the SO aging performance fabricated using different SAW wave-types.