Svart said:
JDB, how would you feel about putting together a tiny MCU(or small FPGA)/DDS setup for clock generation?
Well...
I've thought about it on and off for some time. I would probably use one of those newer 1GHz SAW oscillators driving an AD9912 driving a bandpass filter with an AD951x clock distributor. Add a microcontroller, a cheap TCXO for an absolute frequency reference (the SAW has good phase noise when compared to the ref multiplier in the DDS, but not-so-great long term drift) and options for digital readout/control. Possibly add a few LVPECL->CMOS translator dongles so you can run a balanced clock to the converter(s) over twisted pair and only go single-ended at the chip's own ground reference. This offers milliHertz-level frequency tunability over a wide range indeed, will VariSpeed all you like, with jitter performance to rival the best canned fixed-frequency oscillators.
However, I don't need one myself, and this kind of tech complexity gets close to 'day job'-levels. Add the fact that you'd need two maybe three complex components in CSP/QFN and home-soldering is out, so someone (ie: me) would have to build and test them. Even at friends-and-family rates the module cost would be at or over $200 (and add up the cost of the major parts I've mentioned earlier and see how close you get...), and at that price I wouldn't blame anyone who pointed out that you can get an entire ADA8k-class converter for the same money.
Or am I being overly pessimistic?
JDB.
[yes, I know the boo-tique CD clock upgrades cost as much and offer way less performance]