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Electronic oscillator
 
 
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An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit
Electronic circuit

An electronic circuit is a closed path formed by the interconnection of electronic components through which an electric current can flow. The electronic circuits may be physically constructed using any number of methods....
 that produces a repetitive electronic signal, often a sine wave
Sine wave

The sine wave or sinusoid is a function that occurs often in mathematics, physics, signal processing, hearing , electrical engineering, and many other fields....
 or a square wave
Square wave

A square wave is a kind of non-sinusoidal waveform, most typically encountered in electronics and signal processing. An ideal square wave alternates regularly and instantaneously between two levels....
.

A low-frequency oscillator
Low frequency oscillation

The term low-frequency oscillation is an audio signal usually below 20 Hz which creates a pulsating rhythm rather than an audible tone....
 (LFO) is an electronic oscillator that generates an AC
Alternating current

In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again....
 waveform
Waveform

Waveform means the shape and form of a signal such as a wave moving in a solid, liquid or gaseous medium.In many cases the medium in which the wave is being propagated does not permit a direct visual image of the form....
 at a frequency below ˜200 Hz. This term is typically used in the field of audio synthesizers, to distinguish it from an audio frequency oscillator.

Oscillators designed to produce a high-power AC output from a DC supply are usually called inverters
Inverter (electrical)

An inverter is an electrical or electro-mechanical device that converts direct current to alternating current ; the resulting AC can be at any required voltage and frequency with the use of appropriate transformers, switching, and control circuits....
.

e are two main types of electronic oscillator: the harmonic oscillator
Harmonic oscillator

In classical mechanics, a harmonic oscillator is a system which, when displaced from its equilibrium position, experiences a restoring force proportional to the displacement according to Hooke's law:...
 and the relaxation oscillator
Relaxation oscillator

A relaxation oscillator is an electronic oscillator in which a capacitor is charged gradually and then discharged rapidly. It is usually implemented with a resistor or current source, a capacitor, and a "threshold" device such as a neon lamp, diac, unijunction transistor, or Gunn diode....
.

Harmonic oscillator
The harmonic or 'linear
Linear circuit

A linear circuit is an electric circuit in which, for a Sine wave input voltage of frequency f, any output of the circuit is also sinusoidal with frequency f....
' oscillator produces a sinusoidal output.






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Encyclopedia


An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit
Electronic circuit

An electronic circuit is a closed path formed by the interconnection of electronic components through which an electric current can flow. The electronic circuits may be physically constructed using any number of methods....
 that produces a repetitive electronic signal, often a sine wave
Sine wave

The sine wave or sinusoid is a function that occurs often in mathematics, physics, signal processing, hearing , electrical engineering, and many other fields....
 or a square wave
Square wave

A square wave is a kind of non-sinusoidal waveform, most typically encountered in electronics and signal processing. An ideal square wave alternates regularly and instantaneously between two levels....
.

A low-frequency oscillator
Low frequency oscillation

The term low-frequency oscillation is an audio signal usually below 20 Hz which creates a pulsating rhythm rather than an audible tone....
 (LFO) is an electronic oscillator that generates an AC
Alternating current

In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again....
 waveform
Waveform

Waveform means the shape and form of a signal such as a wave moving in a solid, liquid or gaseous medium.In many cases the medium in which the wave is being propagated does not permit a direct visual image of the form....
 at a frequency below ˜200 Hz. This term is typically used in the field of audio synthesizers, to distinguish it from an audio frequency oscillator.

Oscillators designed to produce a high-power AC output from a DC supply are usually called inverters
Inverter (electrical)

An inverter is an electrical or electro-mechanical device that converts direct current to alternating current ; the resulting AC can be at any required voltage and frequency with the use of appropriate transformers, switching, and control circuits....
.

Types of electronic oscillator

There are two main types of electronic oscillator: the harmonic oscillator
Harmonic oscillator

In classical mechanics, a harmonic oscillator is a system which, when displaced from its equilibrium position, experiences a restoring force proportional to the displacement according to Hooke's law:...
 and the relaxation oscillator
Relaxation oscillator

A relaxation oscillator is an electronic oscillator in which a capacitor is charged gradually and then discharged rapidly. It is usually implemented with a resistor or current source, a capacitor, and a "threshold" device such as a neon lamp, diac, unijunction transistor, or Gunn diode....
.

Harmonic oscillator


The harmonic or 'linear
Linear circuit

A linear circuit is an electric circuit in which, for a Sine wave input voltage of frequency f, any output of the circuit is also sinusoidal with frequency f....
' oscillator produces a sinusoidal output. The basic form of a harmonic oscillator is an electronic amplifier
Electronic amplifier

An electronic amplifier is a device for increasing the Power and/or amplitude of a Signal . It does this by taking energy from a power supply and controlling the output to match the input signal shape but with a larger amplitude....
 with the output attached to an electronic filter
Electronic filter

Electronic filters are electronic circuits which perform signal processing functions, specifically to remove unwanted frequency components from the signal and/or to enhance wanted ones....
, and the output of the filter attached to the input of the amplifier, in a feedback loop. When the power supply to the amplifier is first switched on, the amplifier's output consists only of noise. The noise travels around the loop, being filtered and re-amplified until it increasingly resembles the desired signal.

A piezoelectric crystal
Crystal

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions....
 (commonly quartz
Quartz

Quartz is the most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust . It is made up of a Crystal structure of silica tetrahedra. Quartz has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale and a density of 2.65 g/cm?....
) may take the place of the filter to stabilise the frequency of oscillation
Oscillation

Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. Familiar examples include a swinging pendulum and Alternating current power....
, resulting in a crystal oscillator
Crystal oscillator

A crystal oscillator is an electronic circuit that uses the mechanical resonance of a vibrating crystal of Piezoelectricity#Materials to create an electrical signal with a very precise frequency....
.

There are many ways to implement harmonic oscillators, because there are different ways to amplify and filter. For example:

  • Armstrong oscillator
    Armstrong oscillator

    The Armstrong electronic oscillator is named after the electrical engineer Edwin Armstrong, its inventor. It is sometimes called a tickler oscillator because the feedback needed to produce oscillations is provided using a tickler coil via Inductive coupling between coil L and coil T....
  • Hartley oscillator
    Hartley oscillator

    The Hartley oscillator is an inductorcapacitor electronic oscillator that derives its feedback from a tapped coil in parallel with a capacitor ....
  • Colpitts oscillator
    Colpitts oscillator

    A Colpitts electronic oscillator, named after its inventor Edwin H. Colpitts, is one of a number of designs for electronic oscillator circuits using the combination of an inductance with a capacitor for frequency determination, thus also called LC oscillator....
  • Clapp oscillator
    Clapp oscillator

    The Clapp electronic oscillator is one of several types of electronic oscillator constructed from a transistor and a positive feedback network, using the combination of an inductance with a capacitor for frequency determination, thus also called LC oscillator....
  • Delay line oscillator
    Delay line oscillator

    A delay line oscillator is a form of electronic Oscillation that uses a delay line as its principal timing element.By Inverter the output of the delay line and feeding that signal back to the input of the delay line, the circuit is caused to oscillate....
  • Pierce oscillator
    Pierce oscillator

    The Pierce oscillator is a type of electronic oscillator circuit particularly well-suited for implementing crystal oscillator circuits. Named for its inventor, G....
     (crystal)
  • Phase-shift oscillator
    Phase-shift oscillator

    A phase-shift oscillator is a simple sine wave electronic oscillator. It contains an inverting amplifier, and a feedback filter consisting of an RC network which 'shifts' the Phase by 180 degrees at the oscillation frequency....
  • RC oscillator
    RC oscillator

    Linear circuit electronic oscillator Electric circuit, which generate a sinusoidal output signal, are composed of an amplifier and a frequency selective element, a Electronic filter....
     (Wien Bridge
    Wien bridge oscillator

    A Wien bridge oscillator is a type of electronic oscillator that generates sine waves. It can generate a large range of frequencies. The circuit is based on an electrical network originally developed by Max Wien in 1891....
     and "Twin-T")
  • cross-coupled LC
    LC circuit

    An LC circuit is a variety of resonant circuit or tuned circuit and consists of an inductor, represented by the letter L, and a capacitor, represented by the letter C....
     oscillator
  • Vackár oscillator
    Vackár oscillator

    The Czechoslovakia engineer Jir? Vack?r published in 1949 a paper on the design of stable oscillators . As a result of his in-depth analysis of oscillators, he proposed a variant of a Colpitts oscillator, where an additional capacitive voltage divider on the grid input reduces the feedback voltage to the necessary amount, and at the same time red...
  • Opto-Electronic Oscillator
    Opto-electronic oscillator

    An opto-electronic oscillator is an optoelectronic Electric circuit that produces repetitive electronic sine wave and/or modulated optical continuous wave signals....


Relaxation oscillator

The relaxation oscillator
Relaxation oscillator

A relaxation oscillator is an electronic oscillator in which a capacitor is charged gradually and then discharged rapidly. It is usually implemented with a resistor or current source, a capacitor, and a "threshold" device such as a neon lamp, diac, unijunction transistor, or Gunn diode....
 is often used to produce a non-sinusoidal output, such as a square wave or sawtooth. The oscillator contains a nonlinear component such as a transistor
Transistor

In electronics, a transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to Electronic amplifier or switch Electronics signals. A transistor is made of a solid piece of a semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit....
 that periodically discharges the energy stored in a capacitor
Capacitor

A capacitor or condenser is a Passive component electronic component consisting of a pair of electrical conductor separated by a dielectric....
 or inductor
Inductor

An inductor is a Passive component Electronic component that can store energy in a magnetic field created by the electric current passing through it....
, causing abrupt changes in the output waveform.

Square-wave relaxation oscillators can be used to provide the clock signal
Clock signal

In electronics and especially Synchronous logic digital circuits, a clock signal is a Signalling used to coordinate the actions of two or more Electronic circuit....
 for sequential logic
Sequential logic

In digital circuit theory, sequential logic is a type of logic circuit whose output depends not only on the present input but also on the history of the input....
 circuits such as timers and counters, although crystal oscillators are often preferred for their greater stability.

Triangle-wave or sawtooth oscillators are used in the timebase circuits that generate the horizontal deflection signals for cathode ray tube
Cathode ray tube

The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen, with internal or external means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam, used to create images in the form of light emitted from the fluorescent screen....
s in analogue oscilloscope
Oscilloscope

An oscilloscope is a type of electronic test instrument that allows signal voltages to be viewed, usually as a two-dimensional graph of one or more electrical potential differences plotted as a function of time or of some other voltage ....
s and television
Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
 sets. In function generator
Function generator

A function generator is a piece of electronic test equipment or software used to generate electrical waveforms. These waveforms can be either repetitive, or single-shot in which case some kind of triggering source is required ....
s, this triangle wave may then be further shaped into a close approximation of a sine wave
Sine wave

The sine wave or sinusoid is a function that occurs often in mathematics, physics, signal processing, hearing , electrical engineering, and many other fields....
.

Other types of relaxation oscillators include the multivibrator
Multivibrator

A multivibrator is an electronic circuit used to implement a variety of simple two-state systems such as oscillators, timers and flip-flop s. It is characterized by two amplifying devices cross-coupled by resistors and capacitors....
 and the rotary traveling wave oscillator
Time to digital converter

In Electronics instrumentation and signal processing, a time to digital converter is a device for converting a signal of sporadic pulses into a digital representation of their time indices....
.

See also

  • Crystal oscillator
    Crystal oscillator

    A crystal oscillator is an electronic circuit that uses the mechanical resonance of a vibrating crystal of Piezoelectricity#Materials to create an electrical signal with a very precise frequency....
  • Electronic circuit
    Electronic circuit

    An electronic circuit is a closed path formed by the interconnection of electronic components through which an electric current can flow. The electronic circuits may be physically constructed using any number of methods....
  • RLC circuit
    RLC circuit

    An RLC circuit is an electrical circuit consisting of a resistor , an inductor , and a capacitor , connected in series or in parallel. This configuration forms a harmonic oscillator....
  • Voltage-controlled oscillator
    Voltage-controlled oscillator

    A voltage-controlled oscillator or VCO is an electronic oscillator designed to be controlled in oscillation frequency by a voltage input. The frequency of oscillation is varied by the applied DC voltage, while Modulation signals may also be fed into the VCO to cause frequency modulation or phase modulation ; a VCO with digital pulse o...
  • Injection locked oscillator
  • Ring oscillator
    Ring oscillator

    A ring oscillator is a device composed of an odd number of logic gate whose output oscillation between two voltage levels, representing true and false....
  • Opto-Electronic Oscillator
    Opto-electronic oscillator

    An opto-electronic oscillator is an optoelectronic Electric circuit that produces repetitive electronic sine wave and/or modulated optical continuous wave signals....


External links

  • The URL contains a bunch of information about the oscillator phase noise and frequency stability.
  • A book is available: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-88677-2.
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