Commercially Available Chip-Scale Atomic Clock Offered by Symmetricom
January 18, 2011
Symmetricom, Inc., is announcing the general availability of a tiny, low-power atomic oscillator. The SA.45s Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) provides the accuracy and stability of atomic clock technology while delivering dramatic improvements in size, weight, and power, the company said.
The newest member of Symmetricom's Quantum family of atomic oscillators is suited for portable applications requiring precise synchronization and time keeping in GPS-denied environments, the company said. Its accuracy and low power consumption enable the SA.45s CSAC to satisfy demanding portable applications, such as dismounted IED jammers, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), next-generation man-pack radios, and geop-hyiscal sensors, and military handheld GPS units. The CSAC product is available in standard and military temperature-range configurations.
The SA.45s CSAC incorporates several technology breakthroughs that offer significant benefits for portable applications, the company said. It is 16 cc in volume, weighs 35 grams, requires 115 mW of power, and provides time accuracy two orders of magnitude better than the higher-power quartz-based solutions it replaces, such as oven-controlled crystal oscillators (OCXOs) and temperature compensated crystal oscillators (TCXOs).
"Our new SA.45s CSAC product brings ultra high-precision and low power consumption to a variety of portable and underwater exploration applications," said Dan Scharre, executive vice president and general manager at Symmetricom. "These applications can't rely on continuously receiving GPS signals, and until now, traditional quartz-based timing options have forced users to choose between size, accuracy, and power consumption, even while providing less-accurate timing. We leveraged Symmetricom's extensive history and expertise in providing state-of-the-art timing systems and devices to broadly deliver the first CSAC product to market and to deliver to end-users the best performance in the smallest package at lowest power consumption."
Makers of underwater sensors have used the CSAC's low power consumption and increased stability to greatly increase mission duration, Symmetricom said. Users who rely on military GPS systems have found that the CSAC has the stability to maintain synchronization even during long GPS outages, and that it also enables rapid signal reacquisition, including in manpack systems.
The Quantum SA.45s Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) is available in two versions:
- Option 001, which operates from -10°C to +70°C, for commercial applications.
- Option 002, which operates from -40°C to +85°C, for military applications.
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