Key applications and future trends of crystal oscillators in humanoid robot systems

On the stage of the 2025 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the "YangBOT" program featured 16 robots wearing flower coats and holding flower silk, "Fuxi," performing the twisted yangko dance, which impressed the audience and once again made humanoid robots the focus. It fully demonstrates the cutting-edge strength of China's AI and intelligent manufacturing, bringing a novel visual experience to the audience and making technology more closely related to people's lives.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and robotics technology, humanoid robots are playing an increasingly important role in industrial manufacturing, medical rehabilitation, education and entertainment. In the robot control system, the crystal oscillator serves as the core clock source, ensuring high-precision synchronization and stable operation of each module.
 

1、The demand for crystal oscillators in humanoid robots
Humanoid robots involve multiple high-precision computing and control modules, such as motion control, sensor data processing, wireless communication, artificial intelligence computing, etc., all of which require stable clock signals. Therefore, crystal oscillators are mainly used in robot systems for:
✅  Main control chip clock source: provides a stable clock to ensure the normal operation of CPU and MCU.
✅  Motion control system: Drive the robot joints to coordinate movements, ensuring a smooth gait.
✅  Wireless communication module: Wi Fi, Bluetooth, 5G and other communication systems require high-frequency clock support.
✅  Sensor data processing: Sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, and LiDAR rely on high-precision clock synchronization.
✅  Speech recognition and AI computing: AI tasks such as speech processing and image recognition for robots require precise timing signals.
 

2. Crystal oscillator frequencies commonly used in humanoid robots
The humanoid robot system is complex, and different modules require crystal oscillators of different frequencies. Common applications are as follows:

3. Analysis of key application scenarios
(1) Main control chip (MCU/FPGA) clock
The main control unit of robots usually uses ARM MCU or FPGA, requiring high-precision crystal oscillators (such as 12MHz, 25MHz) as clock sources to ensure the accuracy of data calculation and control command execution. For example, STM32, ESP32, Xilinx FPGA, etc. all rely on crystal oscillators to maintain system stability.
(2) Motion control system
Humanoid robots require precise control of joint movements to ensure gait balance. Gait control algorithms and PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal generation require highly stable clock signals (commonly 24MHz, 32MHz). The accuracy of crystal oscillators directly affects the smoothness of motion, preventing problems such as gait instability and joint shaking in robots.
(3) Sensor data collection
The gyroscope (IMU), LiDAR, camera and other sensors of robots require high-precision time synchronization. For example, Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) typically use 32.768kHz crystal oscillators to ensure accurate sensor sampling rates and balance and navigation of robots in complex environments.
(4) Wireless communication
Modern humanoid robots support wireless communication such as Wi Fi, 5G, Bluetooth, etc., enabling remote control of robots and even enhancing their capabilities through AI cloud computing. 26MHz and 40MHz crystal oscillators are critical clocks for wireless modules, affecting communication stability and transmission speed.
(5) AI computing
High end humanoid robots are equipped with GPUs or NPUs (neural network processing units) to perform AI tasks such as voice interaction, environmental perception, image recognition, etc. These types of computing chips typically use high-frequency crystal oscillators above 100MHz and 125MHz to provide high-performance computing capabilities.
 

4. Future Development Trends
✅  Ultra small crystal oscillator: The demand for miniaturization and lightweight in humanoid robots is increasing, and ultra small crystal oscillators packaged in 1.6 × 1.2mm and 1.0 × 0.8mm will be more popular.
✅  High stability TCXO (temperature compensated crystal oscillator): The robot operates in different environments (such as high and low temperatures), and the temperature compensated crystal oscillator (TCXO) ensures clock stability and improves positioning accuracy.
✅  Low power crystal oscillator: Intelligent robots require long battery life, and low-power crystal oscillators (such as 32.768kHz) help optimize battery energy consumption.
✅  Differential crystal oscillator (LVDS/LP-HCSL): With the increasing demand for high-speed signal transmission in robot AI computing modules, differential crystal oscillators have become a trend, such as 100MHz and 125MHz differential crystal oscillators.
 

5. Conclusion
Crystal oscillator, as the core clock component of humanoid robot system, plays a crucial role in main control calculation, motion control, sensor synchronization, wireless communication, AI computing and other aspects. With the development of robot technology, higher precision, lower power consumption, and more stable crystal oscillator products will be needed in the future to assist robots in evolving towards smarter and more stable directions. Hangjing can provide customers with corresponding products and technical support.