Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!stout!cook
From: cook@stout.ucar.edu (Forrest Cook)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: frequency synthesizer
Message-ID: <4040@ncar.ucar.edu>
Date: 21 Aug 89 20:38:46 GMT
References: <535@focsys.UUCP>
Sender: news@ncar.ucar.edu
Reply-To: cook@stout.UCAR.EDU (Forrest Cook)
Organization: Field Observing Facility, NCAR, Boulder, CO
Lines: 34

In article <535@focsys.UUCP> jack@focsys.UUCP (Jack Houde) writes:
>I want to put together a frequency synthesizer (square wave)
>that can adjust between 1 and 10 MHz with 255 steps (ie. 35k Hz
>per step).

>Ideas???

Hmmmm, One elegant solution would be using one of the new
phase accumulator direct digital synthesizer chips.
They are usually kind of expensive as chips go,
(not counting Intel Coprocessors), but they work nicely.

One company that makes these chips is:

Stanford Telecommunications, Inc
2421 Mission College Blvd
Santa Clara, Ca.  95054
(408) 748-1010  Marketing: (408) 980-5684

They advertize a chip (STEL-1172B) that can generate signals
from 0 to 20Mhz with 32 bits of frequency resolution.
Prototyping boards are availible.

I have no experience with their products, but they are worth a call.

It would be a good idea to look through a few RF engineering magazines
for leads on other vendors.  I think that this field is fairly new and
have not seen any products from the biggies like Motorola or Signetics.
Hopefully, the prices will come down as the quality/quantity goes up.

 ^   ^  Forrest Cook - Beware of programmers who carry screwdrivers - LB
/|\ /|\ cook@stout.ucar.edu (The preceeding was all my OPINION)
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