A crystal is rarely used at its native frequency. Its main purpose is to provide a system timebase, so that everything derived from this crystal will agree on the exact time. For this purpose, the native crystal frequency is irrelevant. What is important is how well it maintains its frequency (stability and to lesser extent jitter). And even that is mostly important for the communication with other timebases.

As you usually need several different frequencies (at least inside logic ICs), you anyway need the PLL step, so it becomes even more irrelevant at which frequency you start.

So you just choose the easiest, most convenient crystal frequency and derive everything from it using essentially free PLLs. Lower frequencies use less power, higher frequencies have less jitter. The compromise is often in the 10-20 MHz ballpark.

A crystal is rarely used to directly provide a clock at its native frequency. Its main purpose is to provide a system timebase, so that everything derived from this crystal will agree on the exact time. For this purpose, the native crystal frequency is irrelevant. What is important is how well it maintains its frequency (stability and to lesser extent jitter). And even that is mostly important for the communication with other timebases.

As you usually need several different frequencies (at least inside logic ICs), you anyway need the PLL step, so it becomes even more irrelevant at which frequency you start.

So you just choose the easiest, most convenient crystal frequency and derive everything from it using essentially free PLLs. Lower frequencies use less power, higher frequencies have less jitter. The compromise is often in the 10-20 MHz ballpark.

A crystal is rarely used at its native frequency. Its main purpose is to provide a system timebase, so that everything derived from this crystal will agree on the exact time. For this purpose, the native crystal frequency is irrelevant. What is important is how well it maintains its frequency (stability and to lesser extent jitter).

As you need several different frequencies, you anyway need the PLL step, so it becomes even more irrelevant at which frequency you start.

So you just choose the easiest, most convenient crystal frequency and derive everything from it using essentially free PLLs. Lower frequencies use less power, higher frequencies have less jitter. The compromise is often in the 10-20 MHz ballpark.

A crystal is rarely used at its native frequency. Its main purpose is to provide a system timebase, so that everything derived from this crystal will agree on the exact time. For this purpose, the native crystal frequency is irrelevant. What is important is how well it maintains its frequency (stability and to lesser extent jitter). And even that is mostly important for the communication with other timebases.

As you usually need several different frequencies (at least inside logic ICs), you anyway need the PLL step, so it becomes even more irrelevant at which frequency you start.

So you just choose the easiest, most convenient crystal frequency and derive everything from it using essentially free PLLs. Lower frequencies use less power, higher frequencies have less jitter. The compromise is often in the 10-20 MHz ballpark.