What is a Frequency Divider?
Frequency dividers are used to divide down the frequency of an input clock signal. They can be both broad band and narrow band. Some are static meaning they have a fixed frequency divider ratio while others are dynamic and are selectable. To add flexibility to the design, most dividers have more than one output where each output can be assigned its own divide ratio.
What does a Frequency Divider do and what are some applications?
Frequency dividers can be found in almost every synchronous IC or system. Standalone ones usually are for test lab environments exclusively, but can find their way into PCB systems built using discrete components and ICs. Dividers are very helpful during test when a high frequency clock synthesizer is in use. The high frequency is used to drive the device under test and/or the utilized data or pattern generator while a divided down version of that same clock signal is need to trigger the oscilloscope. When several ICs/blocks are needed in the test setup and/or being tested; usually different frequencies of the testing clock signal is necessary. This is another reason why frequency dividers are very common and useful in test laboratories.
A few examples of ADSANTEC’s Frequency Divider:
ADSANTEC sells many different flavors of frequency dividers. Its most popular offering is the ASNT8110-PQB. The part works from DC all the way up to 24GHz broadband. What is unique about the product is that the user can select any integer divide ration from 1 (meaning no division; the output clock frequency equals the input clock frequency) to 256. This includes odd multiples like 3, 5, 7 etc. In all cases, the output clock has 50% duty cycle. The division ratio is easily selectable using an 8-bit parallel interface or a 3-wire SPI.
Other selectable high speed frequency dividers ADSANTEC offers include the ASNT8130-KMC and the ASNT8131-KMC. Both of these devices provide divide-by-2 and divide-by-4 versions of the clock input simultaneously and operate up to 36GHz and 32GHz respectively broadband. The ASNT8133-KMC has the ability to pass the input signal directly to the output if desired, or select divide-by-2 or divide-by-4 output, and operates up to 50GHz.
Finally, ADSANTEC offers the ASNT8132-KMC, which is a static divide-by-2 IC. The part works up to 54GHz and still functions at frequencies near DC.
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