Clock generator reduces component count by 80%

According to TI, the National LMK03806 offers designers the ability to synthesise required clock frequencies from a single low cost crystal. This, says TI, enables a reduction in component count of up to 80%, board size and BOM cost by up to 50%. The device has been designed to synthesise seven independent frequencies on 14 outputs. The output frequency spans 2.37MHz to 2.6GHz and provides clocking support for all components on a typical line card. Features include a high frequency voltage controlled oscillator and programmable output dividers; ultra low jitter; programmable LVDS, LVPECL and LVCMOS; and a crystal interface. A companion LMK00301 differential fanout buffer/level translator accepts a single ended, differential or crystal input and produces 10 additional buffered copies of the input clocks of up to 3GHz in LVDS, LVPECL or HCSL format. TI claims the device features best in class jitter performance, generating 51fs rms jitter at 156.25MHz and less than 30fs rms at 312.5MHz output frequency when paired with the LMK03806 clock generator. Both clocking ICs can be combined with TI's TMS320C6748 dsp and TMS320C66x multicore dsps to offer a signal chain solution.