BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a piezoelectric oscillator operating in the aperiodic mode, of the CLAPP type.

From the U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,157 belonging to the applicant a piezoelectric oscillator operating in the aperiodic or overtone mode is known, of the CLAPP type. This oscillator comprises a piezoelectric resonator having a resonance frequency at which the oscillator is to operate, with a first resonator being connected between the base of a transistor and ground, and a capacitive divider bridge having a so called middle point. The emitter of the transistor is loaded by way of a load resistor.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the invention is to provide an oscillator of the above type having better selectivity provided by narrow band-pass filtering.

For this, it comprises a second piezoelectric resonator having in common with the first resonator a mode at said resonance frequency, but whose intrinsic quality factor is between 30 and a 1000 times smaller, the second resonator being connected between the middle point of the capacitive divider bridge and the emitter of the transistor.

In an advantageous variant, the second resonator is chosen so that the mode at said resonance frequency is the only mode common to the first and second resonators.

The intrinsic quality factor of the second resonator is advantageously of the order of 30 to a 100 times less than that of the first resonator and preferably of the order of a 100 times less.

Because of the high selectivity which is obtained, this variant is more particularly suitable in the case where the first resonator is used in one of these partial modes. It will in fact be recalled that the two modes of the same partial are separated by a relative frequency difference of the order of 10%.

In an improved embodiment, the oscillator comprises a third piezoelectric resonator having in common with the first resonator a mode at said resonance frequency, whose quality factor is of the same order of size as that of the second resonator, said third resonator being connected in series between the ungrounded terminal of the first resonator and the base of the transistor.

The oscillator is advantageously associated with a temperature detector and a servocontrol of the temperature of the first resonator.

In a variant, the oscillator comprises a Varicap diode connected in series with said third resonator so as to form a frequency control for the oscillator, it comprises a temperature detector and a compensation circuit producing a control voltage on the Varicap diode so that the frequency drift of the oscillator is compensated for. The first resonator may advantageously have, at said resonance frequency, a stable frequency mode depending on the temperature as well as a so called thermometric mode whose frequency varies with the temperature, the temperature detector then being formed by an oscillator operating in the thermometric mode of the first resonator and whose frequency varies therefore with the temperature thereof. The first resonator can for example be an SC cut quartz, the stable frequency mode being a C mode, and the thermometric mode a B mode. The C mode and the B mode may both belong to the fundamental F or both to a partial of the same rank.

In a preferred embodiment, the temperature sensitive oscillator employs a second transistor. A fourth piezoelectric resonator is connected between the ungrounded end of the first resonator and the base of the second transistor. A capacitive divider bridge having a so called middle point is connected between the base of the second transistor and ground, with the emitter of the second transistor being loaded by a second load resistor. A fifth piezoelectric resonator connects the second middle point to the emitter of the second transistor. The fourth and fifth resonators having in common a mode at the frequency of said thermometric mode of the first resonator, with a quality factor between 30 and a 1000 times smaller than the latter. The collector of the second transistor thereby produces a frequency voltage which varies substantially linearly with the temperature of the first resonator.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be better understood from reading the following description given by way of non limitative example with reference to the drawings which show:

FIG. 1, one embodiment of an oscillator according to the invention;

FIG. 2 an embodiment of a temperature compensated oscillator according to the invention; and

FIG. 3, curves representative of the temperature frequency drift in the case of an SC cut quartz.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

In FIG. 1, a transistor T₁ is supplied with the voltage +V at its collector C₁, a divider bridge R₁,R₂ biasing its base B₁. The emitter E₁ is loaded by a load resistor R₃. The piezoelectric resonator Q₁ is connected between the base B₁ of transistor T₁ and ground. A capacitive divider bridge C₁,C₂ having a so called middle point P₁ is also connected between the base B₁ of transistor T₁ and ground. A piezoelectric resonator Q₂ is connected between the middle point P₁ and the emitter E₁ of transistor T₁. The function of this resonator Q₂ is to form a band-pass filter at the operating frequency of the oscillator. Thus, resonator Q₂ must have a mode at the same frequency as the mode of resonator Q₁ chosen for determining a frequency of the oscillator. According to the invention, the band-pass filter is formed by choosing resonator Q₂ with a quality factor which is 30 to 1000 times smaller than that of resonator Q₁. Thus, it is certain that the oscillator will start up at the chosen frequency without being troubled by thermodrifting. It is very easy to provide a resonator with a quality factor smaller than that of resonator Q₁, since several parameters influence the quality factor of the resonator. Such parameters comprise for example the quality of the cut and the thickness and arrangement of the electrodes. In fact, thick electrodes at the position where the resonator vibrates cause a very considerable drop in the quality factor. In practice, it is high quality resonators which have high quality factors and are therefore very expensive. On the other hand, resonators having lower or much lower quality factors are easier to form and are less expensive. It is in any case possible to provide a resonator having a given quality factor. For example, with a resonator Q₁ made from quartz may be associated a resonator Q₂ made from lithium tantalate.

In FIG. 2, an oscillator such as shown in FIG. 1, is associated with a second oscillator having a high thermal drift. If we refer in fact to FIG. 3, an SC cut quartz has for its partial 3 a C mode whose frequency drift curve as a function of the temperature has a small slope close to a temperature θ° and a practically linear B mode over a large temperature range with high thermal drift. According to the invention, the C mode of the partial 3 of quartz Q₁ is used as temperature stable frequency reference and the slight thermal drift of this C mode is compensated for by using the B mode of the same quartz as temperature sensor. This design has the very important advantage of using, as temperature sensor, the quartz itself whose frequency it is desired to stabilize. It is then certain that the temperature measured is exactly that which is desired.

In so far as the oscillator part in the C mode is concerned, the same elements as those in FIG. 1 are shown with the same references. This oscillator has however in addition a frequency control circuit comprising a low value Varicap diode C_R connected between two capacitors C₅ and C₆ in series with the base of transistor T₁. A biasing resistor R₅ biases the cathode of the varicap diode C_R and a control voltage V_C is applied to the anode of the varicap diode C_R through a coupling resistor R₆. Such a frequency control circuit for slightly varying the frequency of the oscillator is moreover known per se. In addition, in the base circuit of transistor T₁ is connected a piezoelectric resonator Q₃ having a mode at the frequency of the C mode of resonator Q₁ corresponding to the desired frequency of the oscillator, with a quality factor of the order of 30 to 1000 times smaller and preferably 30 to 100 times smaller. Resonator Q.sub. 3 improves the separation between the C modes at which the main oscillator operates and the B mode at which the oscillator used as thermal sensor operates.

The thermal sensor oscillator has a CLAPP circuit similar to that of the oscillator of FIG. 1. The collector of a transistor T₂ is biased by a voltage B through a biasing resistor R₉ and its base by a divider bridge R₈, R₄. Furthermore, a capacitive divider bridge C₃, C₄ having a so called middle point P₂ is connected between the base B₂ of transistor T₂ and ground. The emitter E2 of transistor T₂ is loaded by a load resistor R₁₀. The piezoelectric resonator is connected between the emitter E2 and the middle point P₂. It has a mode whose frequency is that of the B mode close to the C mode at which the main oscillator operates. The same goes for a resonator Q₄ connected between the base B₂ and the ungrounded electrode of resonator Q₁. Resonators Q₄ and Q₅ have a quality factor 30 to 1000 times smaller and preferably a 100 times smaller than that of the B mode considered for resonator Q₁. The output voltage S_T present at the collector C₂ of transistor T₂ is fed to a frequency-voltage converter 1 which outputs a digitalized voltage which is fed into a memory 2. Each value of the output voltage of converter 1 corresponds to an address in memory 2, at which address a stored voltage is read at a rate determined by a sampling clock H. This stored voltage is the reflection of the correspondance between the thermal drift curves in the B mode and the C mode of the quartz Q₁ and its value corresponds to that of the voltage V_C which must be fed into the frequency variation circuit of the main oscillator for providing the thermal drift correction. For this, each value read in the memory at the rate of the sampling clock is fed to a digital-analog converter 3 whose output voltage V_C is applied to the resistor R₆.