Issue with DW3210 Communication Between Tag and Anchor (Internal vs. External Clock)

Wireless Connectivity Ultra-Wideband
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve developed a custom board using the DW3210 and I’m running into some issues with communication between different board types.

I have two kinds of boards:

  • Anchor boards using an external clock
  • Tag boards using the internal clock

Communication between two anchors (using a shared external function generator) works flawlessly.

However, when I try to communicate between a tag and an anchor, I consistently encounter errors such as:

  • PHY header errors
  • RX CRC errors
  • Reed-Solomon errors

The setup uses a coaxial cable with an attenuator in between the boards.

Has anyone experienced similar issues when mixing internal and external clocks? Could this be a clock synchronization problem, or is there something else I might be overlooking?

Any insights would be appreciated!

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Resolved: It turns out that using the same low-quality external function generator for both TX and RX works — likely because they stay in sync despite the poor signal quality.

However, mixing a TX with a high-quality internal clock and an RX with a bad external clock causes the system to fail due to timing mismatch.

TL;DR: If you’re using external clocks, make sure they’re decent

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Thanks for the feedback marc