Steve Rogerson asks Piyush Sevalia from SiTime why the IoT industry should be interested in a tiny resonator.

Timing is everything. Actually, in the case of a lot of IoT devices, this really is true. The timing circuits can be a critical part of their operation whether this is the oscillator, clock or, and this is important, the resonator.

Traditionally, these resonators have been based on quartz, which can be a bit on the bulky side when we are talking about the small sensors and other IoT devices on which this industry depends.

One company hoping to change that is SiTime, based in Silicon Valley, with offices and partners around the world. It specialises in MEMS (micro electro mechanical system) technology and believes this can be a game changer when it replaces quartz in these small resonators. Not only is MEMS smaller than quartz but comes with quite a few performance benefits as well.

This is relevant now because SiTime has just launched (iotm2mcouncil.org/iot-library/news/iot-newsdesk/sitime-mems-resonators-shrink-iot-devices/) its Titan range of MEMS resonators to go with the clocks and oscillators it already produces.

I caught up last week with Piyush Sevalia, executive vice president of marketing at SiTime, who was understandably excited about the launch.

“You need a timing signal to make electronics work,” he said. “People don’t talk about it much but it is literally the heartbeat, but it can be messed up through interference or other factors. This could be temperature changes, power supply noise or environmental factors.”

SiTime focuses only on timing products and does this using semiconductors rather than quartz, because quite simply the firm does not think quartz is reliable enough. In particular, the company uses either MEMS made by Bosch in Germany or programmable analogue circuits, using its own packages and software. The Bosch connection is embedded in SiTime’s history as its founders worked for Bosch some 25 years ago.

“We also develop our own simulation tools,” said Piyush. “This gives us a two-year development boost. We use standard packages and develop our own to bring out the best of our products.”

But why just timing products?

“We focus on producing the best timing signal we can,” he said. “We solve the difficult timing problems.”

The latest product is a standalone resonator that will work with existing oscillator circuits and can be combined with them in the same system-on-chip (SoC).

“They can thus replace the existing quartz resonator with our MEMS resonator without changing the circuit,” Piyush said. “Our target application is anything that is space constrained. Our advantage is size, but the MEMS resonator also needs only about half the power that is needed to drive a quartz resonator.”

Because the resonator can now be integrated into the same SoC as the oscillator, this not only saves space but makes product evaluation much easier. There is no need for separate testing of the resonator. Piyush believes this can save two to four weeks of development time because they don’t have to evaluate the resonator separately.

“The IoT market will like this,” said Piyush. “The PCB can be smaller so they can put in a larger battery or add more features. They can add more sensors because we are giving them the space. We think our customers will find new use cases and benefits that we have not thought of. I am sure people will come up with new things.”

I have to confess when I first heard about the new resonator, I thought so what. It is hard to get worked up about a tiny passive component. But, after my talk with Piyush, I realise that not only is timing important but done right it can lead to even better IoT products; that should resonate with the whole industry.