All-silicon MEMS oscillator launches a comprehensive challenge to traditional quartz devices

Introduction: We replaced the transistor with a chip several decades ago. We replaced the disk and film with a variety of Memory products more than ten years ago. Now companies have to replace the traditional quartz oscillator with a silicon MEMS-based semiconductor device. This will be Another major change in human lifestyles.

We all have a dream to make electronic products all consist of "sand" - "silicon". Now we are getting closer and closer to this dream. However, there is a very stubborn device - the crystal/clock has always been made of quartz. It is not easy to be mass-produced and difficult to miniaturize. One company, SiTime, which was spun off from Bosch (Ph.D.), one of the electronics industry veterans, launched a challenge six years ago to replace this traditional quartz crystal with a silicon-based MEMS clock. , And gradually from the low-end consumer electronics clock market, into the server market, and ultimately into the very high requirements of telecommunications, wireless communications market, challenging the traditional constant temperature crystal and warm-up crystal products, which represents a new milestone, because these The field is considered to be impossible to achieve through MEMS clock technology.

SiTime offers MEMS clock devices that are packaged in MEMS resonators (wafer-level packaging) and analog ICs (including PLL, VCO) packaged on 8-inch standard wafers, using low-cost, high-volume plastics Packaging technology has greatly reduced the size and delivery cycle of clock devices. "Because MEMS resonators have been packaged in a vacuum wafer, we can use an economical plastic package instead of an expensive metal package. This includes patented technologies from Dr.," explains Piyush Sevalia, vice president of marketing at SiTime. .

“With the double assurance of standard semiconductor process and high-yield plastic packaging technology, SiTime has excellent supply capability and the shortest lead time compared to traditional quartz devices,” he added. Moreover, due to the production process based on standard wafers, the yield rate has also increased significantly. This includes the production yield and the reparation rate after the products are on the market, because silicon MEMS has ten times more impact resistance than traditional quartz. "Our product repair rate is a few percent of traditional quartz products," he said.

In addition, SiTime's business model is also very flexible, in addition to providing plastic packaged clock/oscillator components, but also to provide silicon IC MEMS resonator die. “There are already a number of companies using our MEMS resonator die for real-time clock control within the chip. This market will grow very fast next year,” he said. Since its establishment in 2005, SiTime has shipped 75 million sets of silicon MEMS clock products, which account for 85% of the global silicon MEMS clock market. It can be said that it is the absolute leader in the silicon MEMS clock market. In the supply of MEMS die, the market has just started to take off. "At present, this market is shipping about 300-500 million pieces, and it is expected to increase greatly next year. Smart metering master ICs are one of the more demanding markets," he said. “In addition, because our solutions can be tailored, we can encourage customers to further optimize their electronic product capabilities, reduce product size and increase product reliability.”

This time, SiTime introduced the SiT530x series of all-silicon MEMS three-phase clock (Stratum 3) solutions to replace the traditional temperature crystal and temperature compensation crystal products. The application market is targeted at telecommunications and network infrastructures such as core and edge routers based on synchronous optical network (SONET) and synchronous Ethernet, wireless base stations, IP clocks, and smart grid applications. The SiT530x family includes two devices - the SiT5301 with a frequency range of 1 to 60 MHz and the SiT5302 with a frequency range of 60 to 220 MHz.

They have the following features and benefits: Meet or exceed the Telcordia GR-1244 Stratum 3 frequency stability specification for the most demanding clock applications, such as ±0.1 PPM at commercial operating temperatures (0 to 70°C); 2520-compatible package, the industry's smallest size ± 100 PPB solution; supports the widest frequency range (1 to 220 MHz) with an accuracy of 6 decimal places. Designers use SiTime's programmable frequency capability to get rid of the fixed frequency limitations of quartz products and can be used to design systems with higher performance and reliability. In addition, its operating voltage between 2.5V and 3.3V supports all telecom and network SOCs and ASICs and FPGAs.

Rajesh Vashist, Chief Executive Officer of SiTime, stated: “The quartz industry took decades to achieve this precision, and SiTime broke this performance level in just five years. With disruptive innovations such as the Stratum 3 clock and us With the recently released differential oscillator products and voltage-controlled silicon oscillator products, SiTime is accelerating the application of all-silicon MEMS clock products. By combining high performance, low cost, and ease of use, we have successfully abandoned more than 500 customers. Traditional quartz products are turning to our products.”

Jeff Eastman, the company’s global agent for Arrow Electronics and Senior Vice President of Asset Management, pointed out: “The SiTime programmable architecture guarantees that Arrow will be in stock at any time. Many of our customers are taking advantage of the SiTime full silicon solution.” This is a major milestone for the electronics market. "We replaced the transistor with a chip a few decades ago. We replaced the disk and film with a variety of Memory products more than ten years ago. Now we need to replace the traditional quartz oscillator with a true silicon MEMS-based semiconductor device. This will be Another major change in human lifestyles," he said.