Q. What is the MAX14828 clock accuracy requirements?
A. The IO-Link standard requires that the clock for IO-Link communication be limited to an error of +/- 0.1%. It is possible to use a microcontoller as an internal oscillator, but it would be necessary to continually sample the data before communication to realign the clock, as it were, and ensure that this tolerance is adhered to. On all of our reference designs, and in general, we just recommend that the customers select an external clock so that they have better control over the communication (i.e. don’t have to waste the time resetting the clock for every communication) and meet the rather strict IO-Link clock accuracy requirement.