The Lowest-Power Atomic Clock

June 15, 2023

At IMS, Microchip Technology tested and compared measurements between a miniature atomic clock and a chip-scale atomic clock using its 53100A phase-noise analyzer.

David Maliniak

This video is part of Microwaves & RF's IMS 2023 coverage.

The video transcript below has been edited for clarity.

Today, we have a nice demo of the world's lowest-power atomic clock, the chip-scale atomic clock (CSAC), and we're measuring it using Microchip Technology’s 53100A phase-noise analyzer. As a reference for this measurement, we're using a rubidium oscillator, the miniature atomic clock.

We have a GUI running, called TimeLab, and this is acquiring data in real-time of the frequency drift of the CSAC versus the miniature atomic clock. This is displaying the measurement from the 53100A. Here is phase noise, and you can see it's demonstrating a measurement from 0.1-Hz to 1-MHz frequency offset, and it's simultaneously acquiring phase-difference and frequency-difference measurements.

It also shows the frequency-difference plot and Allan Deviation plot. It has basically anything you would need to quantify an oscillator and has all the stability of metrics being acquired in real-time.

There’s another GUI we call Clockstudio, a free software program developed by Microchip. It’s telling us information about the clock performance on board, like the temperature, voltage, and all sorts of other important information for designing in your atomic clocks.

Check out more of Microwaves & RF's IMS 2023 coverage.

About the Author

David Maliniak | MWRF Executive Editor

In his long career in the B2B electronics-industry media, David Maliniak has held editorial roles as both generalist and specialist. As Components Editor and, later, as Editor in Chief of EE Product News, David gained breadth of experience in covering the industry at large. In serving as EDA/Test and Measurement Technology Editor at Electronic Design, he developed deep insight into those complex areas of technology. Most recently, David worked in technical marketing communications at Teledyne LeCroy. David earned a B.A. in journalism at New York University.