14.6.2 External Multipurpose Crystal Oscillator (XOSC) Operation

The XOSC can operate in the following different modes:

• External clock, with an external clock signal connected to the XIN pin
• Crystal oscillator, with an external 0.4-32MHz crystal connected to the XIN and XOUT pins

The XOSC can be used as a clock source for generic clock generators. This is configured by the Generic Clock Controller (GCLK).

At reset, the XOSC is disabled, and the XIN/XOUT pins can be used as General Purpose I/O (GPIO) pins or by other peripherals in the system. When XOSC is enabled, the operating mode determines the GPIO usage. When in crystal oscillator mode, the XIN and XOUT pins are controlled by the OSCCTRL, and GPIO functions are overridden on both pins. When in external clock mode, only the XIN pin will be overridden and controlled by the OSCCTRL, while the XOUT pin can still be used as a GPIO pin.

The XOSC is enabled by writing a '1' to the Enable bit in the External Multipurpose Crystal Oscillator Control register (XOSCCTRL.ENABLE). The XOSC is disabled by clearing the Enable bit. When disabling the XOSC it is important only to write the Enable bit to '0' before additional changes are made to the XOSC register.

To enable XOSC as an external crystal oscillator, the XTAL Enable bit (XOSCCTRL.XTALEN) must be written to '1'. If XOSCCTRL.XTALEN is zero, the external clock input on XIN will be enabled.

When in crystal oscillator mode (XOSCCTRL.XTALEN = 1), the External Multipurpose Crystal Oscillator Gain (XOSCCTRL.GAIN) must be set to match the external crystal oscillator frequency. If the External Multipurpose Crystal Oscillator Automatic Amplitude Gain Control (XOSCCTRL.AMPGC) is '1', the oscillator amplitude will be automatically adjusted, and in most cases result in a lower power consumption. Setting the XOSCCTRL.AMPGC still requires the proper gain setting (XOSCCTRL.GAIN) for the external crystal.

The XOSC will behave differently in different sleep modes, based on the settings of XOSCCTRL.RUNSTDBY, XOSCCTRL.ONDEMAND, and XOSCCTRL.ENABLE. If XOSCCTRL.ENABLE = 0, the XOSC will be always stopped. For XOSCCTRL.ENABLE = 1, this table is valid:

After a hard reset, or when waking up from a Sleep mode where the XOSC was disabled, the XOSC will need time to stabilize on the correct frequency, depending on the external crystal specification. This start-up time can be configured by changing the Oscillator Start-Up Time bit group (XOSCCTRL.STARTUP) in the External Multipurpose Crystal Oscillator Control register. During the start-up time, the oscillator output is masked to ensure that no unstable clock propagates to the digital logic.

The External Multipurpose Crystal Oscillator Ready bit in the Status register (STATUS.XOSCRDY) is set once the external clock or crystal oscillator is stable and ready to be used as a clock source. An interrupt is generated on a zero-to-one transition on STATUS.XOSCRDY if the External Multipurpose Crystal Oscillator Ready bit in the Interrupt Enable Set register (INTENSET.XOSCRDY) is set.