By Graham K. Rogers

Epson Corporation has a considerable amount of experience and knowledge about the use of piezo-electronic applications and quartz crystal technology. The company recently announced that its latest programmable crystal oscillator - designated the SG-8003CG - has now gone into volume production.

The new oscillator in the SG-8003 series has a much smaller footprint than those in previous versions, which will help reduce the size of printed circuit boards. Along with the new oscillator, but sold separately, Epson has also released the SG-Writer II programming tool that can be used to program the oscillators, thus reducing product development time.

• Specifications of the SG-8003CG are available in a PDF document.

• Further information about the SG-8003CG are also available on a web page.

• There is also information online about SG-Writer II which is only available for computers running Windows OS (Windows XP - 32 bit type; Windows Vista - 32 bit type; Windows 7 - 32bit, 64bit).

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.