Just about every appliance and mobile wireless device from mobile phones to remote controlled toys and games have quartz
crystals designed into them for accurate timing and frequency control.
Common Applications include:
Security cameras
Radio transmitters
Cellphones
Navigation
Sensors
Pc disk drives
Pcs
Crystal Manufacturing
Crystal creation takes place in two stages, optical and electrical:
Optical
Crystal production begins with the selection of quartz crystal blanks of the correct thickness and cut orientation from a comprehensive library of quartz crystal blanks. Subsequent processes incorporate lapping, polishing and contouring operations to create quartz blanks with precisely given size, shape, orientation and surface finish to ensure the correct electrical attributes of the finished devices.
Electrical
The optical stages of production are followed by electrical processes such as etching and cleaning, vacuum deposition of gold or silver electrodes, mounting and bonding, adjustment to final frequency, encapsulation, marking and final quality assurance inspection.
Oscillator Manufacture
Oscillator units are fabricated by using both thick film hybrid substrates and printed circuit board techniques. Depending upon the application, the oscillator crystal can be incorporated as an independently sealed unit or as an un-encapsulated crystal blank. With the latter circumstance, the blank is mounted directly onto the oscillator substrate and the finished assembly is altered to final frequency ahead of hermetic sealing. Items produced by an oscillator division typically consists of regular CMOS/TTL oscillators, ECL/PECL output oscillators, Voltage Controlled Crystal Oscillators (VCXOs), Temperature Controlled Crystal Oscillators(TCXOs), and Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillators (OCXOs), these latter elements needing a significant input by engineering and QA departments.
Filter Creation
Crystal filters consist of various discrete crystal or monolithic dual components put together on a printed circuit board with other passive elements (transformers, inductors, capacitors etc.), the whole unit being hermetically sealed in a metal casing. The basic manufacturing steps for filter production are crystal devices, printed circuit board (pcb) assembly, filter alignment, encapsulation and closing assessment. In addition to crystal filters other customized filters can be manufactured; (e.g. LC filters,) for manufacture of these components numerous non-crystal elements such as wound coils are required.