Better than Quartz

Author:
Reported by Cliff Keys, Editorial Director, PSD

Date
11/15/2011

 PDF
SiTime Breaks into High-Precision OCXO Timing with Stratum 3 Solutions

I had the pleasure to talk with Piyush Sevalia, Vice President, Marketing for the SiTime Corporation. SiTime Corporation is an analog semiconductor company which offers MEMS-based silicon timing solutions that replace legacy quartz products. With 85% market share and over 75 million devices shipped, SiTime is driving the $5 billion timing market's transition to 100% silicon-based timing. The company's configurable solutions enable its customers to differentiate their products with higher performance, reduced size and better reliability. The rich feature set and flexibility of SiTime solutions allows customers to consolidate their supply-chain, reducing cost of ownership and time to market. By using standard semiconductor processes and high volume plastic packaging, the company is able to offer the best availability and shortest lead times in the industry.

SiTime Corporation introduced its SiT530x family of Stratum 3 compliant silicon MEMS timing solutions that replace OCXOs and TCXOs. The SiT5301 and SiT5302 are targeted at telecom and networking infrastructure such as SONET and Synchronous Ethernet based core and edge routers, wireless base stations, IP timing and smart grid applications. The SiT530x family uniquely combines Stratum 3 stability with small size, low voltage operation and programmable features that allows customers to quickly and easily customize and differentiate their products. Piyush explained that SiTime's revolutionary technology integrates silicon MEMS and analog ICs to deliver innovative solutions. The quartz industry took decades to deliver this level of precision; SiTime, in 5 years, has broken through the same performance level. With our semiconductor expertise we have added unique features that offer additional value to the customer. With game-changing products like the Stratum 3 clocks, and the company's recently announced differential oscillators and VCXOs, SiTime is accelerating the adoption of silicon MEMS timing products. SiTime is also now addressing an oscillator market of $1 billion. The remarkable combination of performance, lower cost and ease-of-use has enabled the company to successfully convert over 500 customers away from legacy quartz products. "That a MEMS device can now replace OCXOs and TCXOs is a landmark that was considered unachievable for MEMS timing technology just a few years ago," said Jean-Christophe Eloy, CEO and founder of Yole Développement. "SiTime can now join a league of elite timing suppliers that service the highest performance applications. I think we can now safely say MEMS devices offer more features, higher performance and better value than quartz, which is driving the electronics industry's adoption of Silicon MEMS timing solutions." "With the new SiT530x Stratum 3 products, SiTime continues to set new benchmarks in performance, features and reliability," said Jeff Eastman, SVP Global Marketing and Asset Management Arrow Electronics. "SiTime's programmable architecture ensures that Arrow always has SiTime products in stock. Many of our customers already enjoy the benefits of SiTime's silicon MEMS solutions today. With Arrow's large global footprint and SiTime's unique technology, we are well positioned to accelerate the proliferation of SiTime's innovative timing products into all segments of the electronics market."

The SiT530x family consists of two devices - the SiT5301, which operates from 1 to 60 MHz and the SiT5302, which operates from 60 to 220 MHz. Both devices offer the following features and benefits.

  • Meets or exceeds Telcordia GR-1244 Stratum 3 frequency stability specifications for the most stringent timing applications:
  • ±0.1 PPM frequency stability over commercial temperature (0 to 70°C)
  • <±0.37 PPM 24-hour holdover stability
  • ±4.6 PPM frequency stability over 20 years
  • Available in a 2520 compatible package, the industry's smallest ±100 PPB solution. This is a 60% reduction in size compared to any other Stratum 3 TCXO and 10 times smaller than an OCXO. The family is also available in 3225, 5032 and 7050 packages.
  • Widest frequency range of 1 to 220 MHz with 6 digits of accuracy that allows designers to easily program custom frequencies and develop systems with better performance and reliability
  • Unlike quartz, the SiT530x oscillators have no activity dips, which enable a more stable reference clock and superior system performance over temperature
  • Operating voltage of 2.5V to 3.3V supports all telecom and networking SOCs, ASICs, and FPGAs and eliminates level translation
  • 500 femtoseconds of typical integrated RMS phase jitter (12 kHz to 20 MHz) to meet the stringent requirements of telecom and networking applications
  • SoftEdgeTM configurable rise/fall time control improves trace impedance matching and reduces EMI
  • Available voltage control with pull range of up to ±12.5 PPM for in-system calibration and fine-tuning over time
  • Outstanding silicon reliability of 500 Million hours MTBF (10 times better than quartz)
  • 50,000 g shock and 70 g vibration resistance (10 times better than quartz)
Samples will be available in December 2011 to qualified customers and production is planned for 1H2012. Pricing is available upon request. Datasheets: www.sitime.com/products/datasheets/sit5301/SiT5301-datasheet.pdf www.sitime.com/products/datasheets/sit5302/SiT5302-datasheet.pdf Top-tier manufacturers are experiencing these benefits and recognize SiTime as The Smart Timing Choice™. With all these benefits from SiTime's solutions; with the powerful feature set of its products, enabling designers to be more creative, faster to market and with the design tools available from this fast-growing company, it looks to be a perfect timing solution for designers. www.sitime.com

RELATED

 


-->