Product category:
Reference Designs
News Release from: Xicor | Subject: RTC reference design
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 25 September 2002
Reference design provides budget
punctuality
Xicor has developed a precision timing real time clock reference design.
Xicor has developed a precision timing real time clock (RTC) reference design Together with an evaluation kit, the reference design is a complete timing solution that saves design time and PCB real estate for those working in industrial, enterprise network applications and with embedded control systems
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 13 Jul 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The reference design demonstrates that precision timing can be achieved at low cost by using a temperature sensor, microcontroller, and Xicor's integrated RTC with EEPROM and standard crystal oscillators.
Complete circuit design schematics and board design layout files together with software drivers for Windows interface and example files for C-code development are included in the design.
Moreover, the reference design provides solutions to some of the key design challenges in precision timing for both localised and distributed-network clocking systems.
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These challenges range from synchronisation with an accurate timing source at the network level to compensating for electronic component variation due to different environmental effects.
An excellent tool for designers aiming to provide precision timing solutions on a mass scale, the reference design has demonstrated that a 15-fold timing accuracy improvement can be achieved at low cost.
This can be translated to a difference of timing accuracies of half an hour per year to less than 2min per year.
The Xicor precision RTC reference design emphasises the implementation of the company's RTC devices that contain both analogue and digital timing adjustments that can compensate for crystal oscillator drift over temperature and aging.
Initially, temperature values versus oscillator compensation adjustments are mapped into a lookup table.
Hence, the Xicor real time products can be used to make automatic oscillator compensation adjustments via two-wire bus over temperature variation.
The temperature value profile is stored in the Xicor device.
The reference design allows for timing synchronisation with atomic clock networks that are readily available on the Internet.
The software included with the reference design includes a data analyser that records timing deviation and temperature history.
This allows a designer to characterise the crystal oscillator and realise a complete timing solution during prototyping.
Xicor's RTC products provide an excellent solution for embedded control applications because of their high integration of timing functions, system management functions, and the non-volatile memory.
It is possible to achieve +/-5ppm timing accuracies using a low cost crystal with Xicor's RTC products.
The products provide a one-chip solution that simplifies software and microcontroller solutions while requiring very little additional PCB real estate.
The RTC reference design is available free and can be downloaded at from the Xicor website.
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