Silicon Labs Si50x CMEMS Oscillators PR 20130627

Quartz crystal oscillators have been around for almost one century, sitting in every complex and sophisticated device from PCs to mobile phones to digital cameras to tablet PCs to control the timing of the operations of their built-in key parts and components

Yet, the 100-year old technology has hit a dead-end in reducing manufacturing costs and foot prints, as other components and chip technologies are increasingly getting smaller and cheaper using a low-cost and high volume chip manufacturing technologies.

For example, traditional quartz crystal oscillators are manufactured out of a blank quartz ingot undergoing several steps of labor-intensive manufacturing processes down the road from initial crystal-growing process to expensive ceramic packaging and assembly to the finish, resulting in long, unpredictable lead time as well as high manufacturing costs. The traditional crystal oscillators also are very much susceptible to vibration, shock, abrupt changes in temperature, and aging.

To break through the technological barrier, the chip makers have muscled in to fabricate MEMS-based oscillators using a CMOS silicon die technology.

"The big step forward was to replace a quartz resonator with a MEMS resonator. The first generation of MEMS resonator was one where MEMS resonator was fabricated with one specialized semiconductor fab and the end-line die is produced on CMOS fab. The total solution was the combination of those two dies in a multichip module format - the resonator die wire-boned to the end-line CMOS die-making an assembly process more complicated. That was a big step forward in changing the oscillator layer. Another big step forward is the full integration of MEMS on top of a CMOS die, so that a monolithic solution can be provided, "said Mike Petrowski, vice-president, general manger, Timing with Silicon Labs.