Targeting the IoT market, Californian precision timing company SiTime has launched a family of MEMS resonators that are at least four times smaller than the tiniest legacy quartz alternatives.

The Titan platform is said to enable unprecedented miniaturisation and integration in small, battery-powered, connected devices for wearables, medical devices, smart homes and industrial IoT applications.

Titan should expand SiTime’s serviceable addressable market by $400m now, growing to $1bn annually within three years.

“Titan fulfils our vision of being the only provider of complete timing components – oscillators, clocks and, now, resonators,” said Rajesh Vashist, CEO of SiTime. “Titan is the result of over a decade of innovation in MEMS design, materials science and semiconductor process engineering. SiTime’s proprietary MEMS technology, now in its sixth generation with FujiMEMS, is the foundation for Titan, which is years ahead of competitors. By integrating resonators into SoCs, MCUs and wireless chip packages at scale, customers can capture more system value and revenue with their products. This integration is transformative for the entire electronics industry.”

In electronic systems, resonators are the heartbeat of the clock tree. Titan offers two flexible implementation paths: PCB-mounted for rapid adoption; and bare die co-packaging with SoCs or MCUs, eliminating the need for a discrete resonator on the board.

This flexibility lets OEMs and semiconductor companies shrink product size and add features.

Titan is engineered for demanding edge applications:

• Wearables: Smartwatches, fitness bands, continuous glucose monitors, smart eyewear, and fitness rings benefit from its small footprint and low power.
• Medical devices: Hearing aids, implantables and biosensors gain longer battery life and better reliability.
• Smart home and industrial IoT: Sensors and asset trackers become more compact, rugged and power-efficient.

“SiTime’s Titan resonators are a game-changer,” said Scott Hanson, CTO of Ambiq (ambiq.com). “Our partnership with SiTime allows us to deliver a unique integration, combining ultra-low power processing with precision timing. This collaboration empowers our customers to build intelligent, connected products that push the boundaries of what’s possible, especially in edge AI applications where performance and efficiency are critical.”

Titan is built on SiTime’s sixth-generation MEMS technology, FujiMEMS, delivering performance and reliability compared with legacy quartz resonators. The 0505 CSP measures 0.46 by 0.46mm, taking up a seven times smaller PCB area than 1210 quartz and four times smaller than 1008 quartz. This comes with up to 50% lower oscillator circuit power, and up to three times faster start up with three times lower start-up energy.

Aging stability is up to five times better and is specified for five years at the maximum temperature. There is tighter stability across temperature ranges from -40 to +125˚C. And it has up to 50 times better shock and 30 times better vibration resilience.

Production samples of the Titan SiT11100 32MHz product are available now. Engineering samples of the Titan SiT11101 (76.8MHz), SiT11102 (38.4MHz), SiT11103 (48MHz) and SiT11104 (40MHz) will be available towards the end of this year.

Production of the 32MHz unit should start mid next year with the other frequencies following about three months later.

SiTime (www.sitime.com) is a precision timing company. Its semiconductor programmable MEMS offer a feature set that is said to help users differentiate their products with higher performance, smaller size, lower power and better reliability. The company has shipped more than 3.5 billion devices.

For more on this announcement, see the IMC blog at iotm2mcouncil.org/iot-library/articles/technology/making-time-or-why-mems-is-better-than-quartz/.