The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 21, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 11, 2000
Silvio Dalla Piazza, Saint-Imier, CH;
Pinchas Novac, Neuchâtel, CH;
Other;
Abstract
The present invention concerns a low frequency oscillator device including a quartz resonator ( ) and an electronic maintenance circuit for maintaining the vibrations of said quartz resonator. According to the present invention, the quartz resonator is arranged to vibrate according to a torsional mode and therefore has a single cutting angle defined by a rotation at a determined angle (&thgr;) about the crystallographic axis X of the quartz crystal. This resonator includes in particular at least one undesired fundamental flexural vibrating mode at a first frequency and a desired fundamental torsional vibrating mode at a second frequency higher than said first frequency. Moreover, the electronic maintenance circuit is an inverter circuit ( ) whose transconductance value (g ) is determined such that said device cannot oscillate according to the undesired fundamental flexural vibrating mode but according to the desired fundamental torsional vibrating mode of said resonator. The oscillator device according to the present invention thus has substantially improved thermal characteristics with respect to known oscillator devices using flexural vibrating resonators.