SiTime Corporation has today announced a new family of MEMS resonators called Titan, which the company said is up to 7 times smaller than the smallest quartz alternatives, enables the integration of the resonator into an SoC or MCU, and saves printed circuit board space, enabling developers to shrink their product designs.
In a briefing in London, U.K., SiTime’s EVP of marketing, Piyush Sevalia, told EE Times that the Titan resonator family had been a gleam in their eyes for several years, during which the company had been developing the process engineering, the materials science, MEMS design, plus optimization and characterization of the devices. “It was a huge hurdle to cross to get the stability and accuracy required [to the point today where we could launch]”, he said.
He added that the Titan family expands SiTime’s serviceable addressable market by $400 million, which will grow to $1 billion annually within three years. He clarified that this is the total market for SiTime, not just resonators, but includes oscillators, clock ICs, and resonators.
On the target market, Sevalia said, “The key target applications are space-constrained devices; it’s a silicon die, so it can be put into a plastic package, which has benefits over ceramic.” With resonators being the ‘heartbeat’ of the clock tree in electronic systems, Sevalia added that Titan can be incorporated as standalone resonators on a PCB, or bare die co-packaged within the SoC or MCU.
Hence, it targets applications such as wearables, medical devices, and smart home and industrial IoT, all areas in which OEMs and semiconductor manufacturers continually seek to shrink product size or add new features within the same space.
This target marries nicely with Ambiq’s niche, so SiTime has partnered with Ambiq. In the launch press announcement, the founder and CTO of Ambiq, Scott Hanson, said, “SiTime’s Titan resonators are a game-changer. Our partnership with SiTime allows us to deliver a uniquely integrated solution—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.”
In the same press release, SiTime CEO Rajesh Vashist added, “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.”
SiTime also quoted Dave Altavilla, principal analyst at HotTech Vision and Analysis, who said, “Once a Titan resonator is integrated, it becomes part of the SoC or MCU platform for the life of that product. The Titan platform is a disruptor, not only for how semiconductor and end-product engineers implement their timing solutions, but for the timing industry as a whole. It also represents a very sticky new revenue stream for SiTime.”
According to SiTime, the new Titan resonators come in a 0.46 x 0.46 mm 0505 CSP package, 4x smaller than 1008 quartz resonators and 7x smaller than 1210 quartz resonators. The company said that they enable up to 50% lower oscillator circuit power and roughly 3x faster startup with 3x lower startup energy, making them a good option when power budgets are tight.
In terms of stability characteristics, they claim to have 5 times better aging stability (specified for running 5 years at the maximum temperature) and tighter stability across a wide temperature range of –40°C to 125°C. Titan resonators also claim to have up to 50x better shock and 50x better vibration resilience, making them “virtually indestructible in the presence of harsh environmental stressors”, according to SiTime.
From EETimes