By Barbara Goode, Small Times staff

Some segments will be more responsive than others to migrating away from quartz, says Discera. (Image: Discera)

Apr. 9, 2007 — A new report on the timing devices market and MEMS developers’ efforts to unseat decades-old quartz technology says the upstarts face an uphill battle. But Discera, one of the startups looking to win big in this application area, indicates that uneven market acceptance is no surprise — and no problem.

The report’s author, ABI Research, has done a number of studies in this area. In 2005 (“Quartz Crystal Oscillators and Silicon Timing Devices: XTAL, XO, VCXO, TCXO, OCXO, Silicon & SAW Devices”), ABI said that until the end of the decade, silicon timing device market were destined to grow at least double the rate of the traditional oscillator markets. Another ABI report, released in late 2006, forecast the market for both silicon- and crystal-based timing devices would grow from $4.2 billion (in 2006) to more than $5.7 billion in 2011. But that report cast a dark shadow: “Silicon is increasingly able to handle some of the timing tasks traditionally given to crystals. However, continued under-investment by telecoms infrastructure vendors could have a negative effect in the medium term.”

In ABI’s new report, senior analyst Douglas McEuen says the MEMS developers are “trying to climb a Mount Everest of an industry that is already established.”

“We know that some segments of the market will be more responsive than others to migrating away from quartz,” says Venkat Bahl, VP of Marketing for Discera. “These segments offer lots of opportunity for us in the short term and enable us to build our business to support other parts of the market when they are ready to migrate down the road.”

McEuen adds, though, that the MEMS solution is based on a silicon CMOS chip, the benefits of which are huge: “the electronics industry has 30 years of established procedures, processes and understanding of the silicon solution, which creates an opportunity . . . to make up ground.”

ABI also notes that silicon solutions are less expensive than quartz, and that rugged MEMS technologies are well suited for low-jitter applications such as those in military and aerospace that require shock and vibration resistance.

While SiTime another MEMS timing device developer declined to comment, Bahl added that, “The report issued by ABI Research echos what our customers such as Vectron and their customers are saying — that benefits of a silicon based timing devices are huge. By moving from quartz to CMOS, manufacturers of consumer electronics and other devices will realize a number of benefits including reduced footprint requirements, programmability and low power.”