1.

Calibration Procedure
1.1. Introduction
The following procedure is used to calibrate the Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator
(OCXO or OVCXO) on the MCU and MCU-micro products. The procedure relies on
using an accurate caesium/rubidium clock and a frequency counter to measure the
accuracy of the OCXO output clock.
The procedure calibrates the centre frequency of the OCXO and the gain slope of the
frequency deviation versus control voltage curve. This method of calibration allows a
multitude of vendors to supply the OCXO for this product range without compromising
performance.
1.2. Equipment List
The following equipment should be used to perform the calibration.
1. Caesium or Rubidium clock standard with 1 or 10 MHz output frequency.
2. Universal Counter with external reference with 3 pin MCU .
3. TTY with sync MMI connector

H2SC

8kHz Out

Universal Counter Timer

8000.0000
A

GATE

EXT

External
Reference

Figure 1 illustrates how the equipment should be connected to the unit under test.

Note: If a pre-made counter connector is not available, the 8kHz out signal on MCU is
pin 1 (bottom pin) and ground is pin 3 (top pin).
1.3. Procedure
Verify that communications with sync mmi are established the initiate Synchronisation
calibration procedure by typing 'dcal' on the MCU TTY terminal.
SYNC>dcal
Connect the the MCU Cal Out signal to the counter and initiate calibration of the centre
frequency of the OCXO by typing 'y' at the prompt
Frequency Counter Connected, Enter 'y' when ready, 'a' to abort test>y
Adjust the OCXO control voltage using the +/- 0..3 keys until the measured frequency is
exactly 8000.00000 Hz. The values typed here change the frequency by varying degrees.
For example, a +0 will increase the output by a very small amount. A +1 will increase it
by about 10 times the amount, +2 by 100 and +3 by 1000. These are not exact values
because every OCXO has different gain but this method gives sufficient control to pull in
the frequency in a short time.
A typical sequence of numbers may look like below:
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+3
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+3
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+2
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>-1
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>-1
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>-1
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+0
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+0
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+0
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+0
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>+0
Save the results by typing s.
Enter 'a' to abort, 's' to save, '+[0..3]' to inc, -[0..3] to dec>s
CAL OFFSET is: 28414 DAC Bits

To calibrate the OCXO gain enter the measured frequency value after the value has
settled in response to the MMI prompts.
NB When taking a frequency measurement, ensure that a full gate period elapses from the
time the new value is set to reading the counter. This wait may be up to 20 seconds
depending on the counter.
Dac set to 1.0 volts, Enter Freq Value or 'a' to abort>7999.99760
Dac set to 2.0 volts, Enter Freq Value or 'a' to abort>7999.99834
Dac set to 3.0 volts, Enter Freq Value or 'a' to abort>7999.99907
Dac set to 4.0 volts, Enter Freq Value or 'a' to abort>7999.99980
Dac set to 5.0 volts, Enter Freq Value or 'a' to abort>8000.00048
Dac set to 6.0 volts, Enter Freq Value or 'a' to abort>8000.00112
Dac set to 7.0 volts, Enter Freq Value or 'a' to abort>8000.00175
Calibration Gain 0.518799
SYNC>
On completion, the operator should ensure that the Calibration Gain value is between 0
and 1.5. Values other than this may indicate a poor OCXO or an error in performing the
procedure. The most common error is in reading the counter when locating the decimal
point by eye.
If the value is not in this range, the calibration should be performed again as a check. If it
fails a second time with the same or similar value, the OCXO may be operating outside
of the Motorola specification. Otherwise the calibration procedure is complete.
This is a simplified manual calibration procedure, a fully automated procedure is
implemented for production calibration.
2. OCXO Characteristics
2.1. Warm-up
It should be noted that, to ensure operation within GSM limits, calibration must only be
performed on a warm OCXO. For laboratory purposes, this may be as short as 15 minutes
providing that the MCU is never going to be used in a real base station. For production
and external test purposes this must be extended to the full 30 minutes.
When warming up, the OCXO may look stable and several consecutive measurements
may indicate that it is fully warmed up. However, the OCXO exhibits a characteristic
called 're-trace' where it is moving towards its final frequency value and this could
actually take several hours.

30 minutes is a useable retrace compromise to give confidence that the frequency is fairly
close to the final. However, it could still be out by a few 10's of ppb. If the calibration is
performed before expiry of the 30 minutes, it cannot be guaranteed that the OCXO is
close to the final frequency.
The effect will be an offset built in to the initial value which will arise after the unit is
commissioned.
2.2. Aging
Before considering aging, it should be understood that the OCXO is at the very limits of
current SC cut crystal technology and that 50 ppb is a very stringent long term stability
criteria. Real stability is gained using Rubidium, but this is not applicable in this
environment on cost and reliability grounds. Normal crystals (such as used in
microprocessor circuits, or TCXO's and VCO's) have stabilities measured in ppm and
aging or retrace in ppb is rarely a concern.
Aging is caused by several effects acting on the quartz crystal. The main causes are
contamination and mechanical stress. Both effects may arise from several causes. The
effect of aging is to change to output frequency over a long period of time. The typical
value is 50 ppb per year.
This frequency change is not predictable and may be positive, negative of oscillatory.
The main reason for having a sync circuit is to compensate for this frequency drift by
'pulling' the OCXO output back on to the frequency extracted from the E1/T1 link, GPS
receiver or external reference. The pulling or 'warp' range will be in the order of 1ppm.
If the MCU fails to synchronise to a source for the period of a year, the OCXO may have
drifted out of the 50ppb spec and so a calibration request will be issued.
Normally, the sync circuit will compensate for the aging by changing the OCXO control
voltage in the range 0-10V to adjust the output frequency. Eventually, the aging may be
so extreme that the control voltage limits are reached and the OCXO becomes unusable.
This may happen over a ten year or longer period. In this case a replace OCXO message
is generated.
The whole area of aging is complex and is outside the scope of this document.