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This guide describes the general properties of, and performance characteristics to be obtained with quartz crystal controlled oscillators. For convenience, crystal controlled oscillators have been rather arbitrarily categorized in four general groups; packaged crystal oscillators (PXO), temperature compensated crystal oscillators (TCXO), voltage-controlled crystal oscillators (VCXO) and oven-controlled crystal oscillators (OCXO). Also included is a general discussion of the specification and measurement of frequency stability which is useful in evaluating oscillator performance, as well as a discussion of some of the important performance factors which are often misunderstood and even incorrectly specified.