On 1/22/07, Bob Axtell <engineer@neomailbox.com> wrote:
> Brooke Clarke wrote:
> > Hi Mike:
> >
> > What do  you mean by "possible failure causes"?
> > For example are you trying to determine future reliability, like for a
> > space mission, or . .
> > do you have units that have failed and you want to know why, or . .
> >
> > Have Fun,
> >
> > Brooke Clarke
> >
> >
> I'll bet Mike has a legitimate reason for asking. I have gone through a
> spate of bad crystals in the
> past, and the experience was NOT pleasant.
>
> You will notice that I no longer design-in crystals, I use ceramic
> resonators. And I have never regretted
> the change.

You are not clocking then some PLL of RF transcievers to get 5Ghz, or
some FPGA  PLL having 1GHz main clock... because ceramic resonators
are good only for low speed microcontrollers running at 0-30C (and not
allways).

I had very bad experiences with resonators and PIC16F676 and
PIC16F877A, caused by an temperature/amplitude variation at the oscout
pin, below the internal trigger limit.

I had bad experiences with some VTCXO too...I'll say it depends by your luck.

greetings,
Vasile
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