Activate resonator cuts a swathe through design times, says SiTime
Introducing a new category of active resonators, SiTime says its XCalibur active resonator is a drop-in replacement for quartz crystal resonators. It can therefore solve the supply chain constraints of using programmable semiconductors and can also reduce development time by up to two months.
The XCalibur active resonator is claimed to provide higher performance and reliability while reducing development time by up to two months in automotive, enterprise and industrial applications.
The new category of MEMS-based active resonators opens up a $200m SAM [serviceable available market] within the $4bn resonator market, said Piyush Sevalia, executive vice president of marketing at SiTime. The XCalibur active resonators’ programmability solves quartz availability problems in addition to using the semiconductor supply chain that is independent of quartz. “Additionally, quartz resonators are notorious for posing design challenges requiring additional testing and development, delaying customers’ projects. XCalibur solves these challenges by providing a more reliable, flexible drop-in replacement that’s much easier to implement,” added Sevalia.
Quartz resonators are susceptible to strong EMI fields, require negative resistance testing in every design and layout cycle, as well as requiring qualification for each frequency. Designers using the XCalibur active resonators no longer experience EMI or start-up issues, said SiTime. They no longer need to send their board to quartz vendors for negative resistance testing and they can implement a new frequency in the same design without re-qualifying the part. All these characteristics enable the design to get to market faster.
SiTime claims the XCalibur active resonators provide 10x better reliability than quartz, making them suitable for automotive and industrial applications that demand robustness and long life in harsh environments. The MEMS-based resonators can also be used in communications and networking, enterprise, consumer electronics, mobile and IoT, and aerospace and defence applications.
The SiTime XCalibur range consists of the SiT1408, SiT1409, SiT1418, SiT1419, SiT1420, SiT1421, SiT1424 and SiT1425. The active resonators can replace four-pin SMD crystal resonators in demanding automotive, industrial, and enterprise equipment applications.
They operate across a range of frequencies (1.0 to 137MHz) and are stable over temperature +/- 20ppm (-55 to +125 degrees C) and +/-15 ppm at +25 degrees C.
The surface-mount package options have dimensions of 3.2 x 2.5mm and 2.5 x 2.0mm.
Sample lead times are within 48 hours, confirmed SiTime, with production lead times within two weeks.
