Hello, I'm new to circuit design with general beginner knowledge into circuitry, signaling and systems. I would like to try on a project on constructing a RF circuit to generate an output of 10MHz square wave frequency with a 5 volt output. Ive done a bit of research and would think that a Colpitts Circuit with a NPN transistor would be the best way to achieve this. I would like to know other peoples opinion on this and what points I should cover on this. Thank You

 

For a 10MHz square wave, a logic gate oscillator is probably the way to go. Scroll down here to 'CMOS Crystal Oscillator'.

 

For a 10MHz square wave, a logic gate oscillator is probably the way to go. Scroll down here to 'CMOS Crystal Oscillator'.

I found the design you posted which was a great much help. A few questions if you could answer for me would also be great. I heard that a schmitt inverter as the first inverter would cause frequency distortion, so a 74HC04 inverter would be the best option as the first and second inverter rather than a Schmitt inverter. Would that be the best way to creating this crystal oscillator?

 

If you use a Schmitt trigger you can do it with three components (plus power supply bypass capacitor, not shown.)


I had a 74HC14 running at 15 MHz in this circuit. Higher frequencies are possible.

Colpitts oscillators make sine waves, or very nearly so, if you started with a Colpitts oscillator you would need one or more additional stages to make a square wave out of it. The spectrum of a square wave is the sum of several odd harmonics -the more harmonics the more square the waveform. Figure you would probably want a bandwidth of at least 50 MHz for a 10 Mhz square wave.