Oct. 24, 2006 — SiTime, a Sunnyvale, Calif., company bringing MEMS-based all silicon timing solutions to market, introduced what it claims is the smallest and thinnest megahertz resonator.
The SiT0100 measures 0.8 mm tall x 0.6 mm wide x 0.15 mm thick. Unlike quartz, the megahertz resonator, which is shipped in die form, may be placed in a multiple chip module or system-in-package solution and handled as any semiconductor die. The resonator may be wire bonded or flip chipped and then plastic encapsulation with no substantial change in performance.
“SiTime offers this tiny resonator to the technical community knowing that it will find a home into applications we cannot conceive of,” said Markus Lutz, co-inventor and co-founder of SiTime, in a prepared statement. “This is not simply a quartz replacement technology, but a technology that will stand on its own enabling more functional, smaller, higher value, and more reliable products.”
The SiT0100 SiRES resonator operates at 5.1 MHz and has a Q of approximately 80,000. The phase noise performance is -115 dBc / Hz @ 10 kHz allowing it to be used in most consumer, automotive, and industrial frequency control applications. The device is passive and consumes no power. When combined with an oscillator circuit the power consumption is similar to quartz devices with similar Q’s.
The SiT0100 measures 0.8 mm tall x 0.6 mm wide x 0.15 mm thick. |
While SiTime’s MEMS oscillators are designed to directly replace quartz oscillators, SiTime’s MEMS resonators are not directly compatible with Quartz resonators. MEMS resonators require a unique drive circuit and a stable bias voltage for proper operation. Therefore, SiTime has prepared a design-in kit with a detailed datasheet, LRC model, an example 0.18 um CMOS drive circuit, and documentation for rapid and successful design-in and final plastic packaging of this new technology. The SiRES resonator design-in kit is available from SiTime under a non-disclosure agreement which includes three days of on-site support.
The SiT0100 is manufactured with SiTime’s proprietary MEMS First and EpiSeal process, which is designed to withstand extremely harsh environmental conditions. SiTime says it can withstand 30,000 G’s of shock and a 50 Hz to 1 kHz 15 G continuous sine wave.
The EpiSeal process encapsulates the resonator in an extremely clean, high vacuum cavity. This vacuum cavity allows the single crystal silicon beam to resonate in a completely contamination free environment. SiTime says the near perfect environment yields a part that ages less than 0.15 ppm per year for 25 years with no detectable thermal hysteresis, thus eliminating frequency error sources that are impossible to calibrate.
The remaining frequency error sources are a function of well characterized ultra pure single crystal silicon and 0.18 µm CMOS processing. A single point temperature calibration will yield a resonator that is better than +/-50 ppm over -40 to 85 °C and typically +/- 10 ppm.
The SiT0100 is available in 1 MU and 10 MU quantities priced at $0.35 to $0.25 respectively. The SiT0100DK development kit is available for $150,000.