[time-nuts] Unified VCXO Carrier Board

Charles Steinmetz csteinmetz at yandex.com
Tue Oct 27 23:02:08 EDT 2015


Gerhard wrote:

>It's bad, but not that bad.  10 times the voltage is 20 dB more. So
>
>0dB   = 1nV/sqrt Hz
>20 dB = 10 nV
>40 dB = 100 nV
>60 dB = 1uV
>80 dB = 10 uV/sqrt Hz

So I got ~40dB and ~30dB right, but screwed up and turned 10uV into 
1mV.  How'd I do that?

>The wideband noise at, say, 46 dB would be 200 nV/sqrt Hz  versus 
>the claimed 75 nV typical
>but the corner frequency is really bad. I bought them last year from 
>Digi-key, still with
>National as manufacturer on the bag, not TI.
>
>I'll test a few more next weekend.

Even Digi-Key is not immune from counterfeits.  I received some 
counterfeit voltage references last year, but before I used any I got 
a message recalling them.

Thinking on it a bit more, your results look like what one might 
expect if someone put up bandgap reference dice in fake LM329 
packages.  On the other hand, they could be from a lot of real NS 
parts that had serious fab issues or catastrophic storage issues.

In any case, if the others you have are like that one, throw them out 
and get some new ones that meet spec (and just in case, buy from 
another vendor, and perhaps another manufacturer).  You can buy them 
direct from Linear Technology <http://www.linear.com/purchase/LM329>, 
but only in the plastic TO-92 package (all the 329s I've used have 
been in the hermetic package, but those appear to be history now).

Best regards,

Charles




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