Posted by Laura Roberts
A lack of awareness among manufacturers is delaying the replacement of quartz with silicon, according to one industry expert.Piyush Sevalia, vp at Bosh spin-off SiTime, explains that despite the many advantages of silicon, timer manufacturers have been slow to replace quartz.
"Quartz can't be easily and cost effectively integrated in a plastic package," states Ms Sevalia.
"SiTime resonators allow IC package integration of any clock reference," she continues.
Quartz has dominated accurate frequency generation since the mid-1940s.
The mechanical and piezoelectric properties of quartz crystals has made them the fundamental timing component of choice.
However, silicon packaging inventions have allowed resonator die to be assembled in industry standard and low-cost plastic packages.
The silicon oscillator is fabricated using standard submicron CMOS technology and is factory programmed at test to a specific frequency, signal format, and supply voltage.
Silicon has solved the problems created by other alternatives to quartz, such as maintaining clean vacuums, preventing cavity contamination and aging effects, and meeting temperature standards.
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