Shrink Clock Complexity with MEMS-Based Clock Generators
Designing mobile systems like smartphones, wearables, and GNSS-enabled devices is more challenging than ever. Engineers must deliver higher performance within tighter space and power budgets while managing thermal and mechanical challenges.
Precision timing is a critical design parameter in today’s mobile systems, directly impacting performance, reliability, power consumption, and integration complexity. Yet, timing implementation remains difficult, especially when using multiple components such as oscillators, resonators, and clock generators.
Each device adds to the board footprint and can introduce timing alignment issues across subsystems. Even minor timing errors can degrade location accuracy, a critical functionality in GNSS-enabled systems.
The growing complexity of mobile system design demands greater timing accuracy and integration. Devices like the MEMS-based SiT30100 Symphonic clock generator help meet these requirements by delivering compact, reliable, and power-efficient clocking, a significant shift in how timing is implemented in space- and power-constrained mobile designs.
Timing Should Be Treated as a Critical Design Element
In earlier generations of mobile hardware — particularly quartz-based designs — clock sources were often considered interchangeable components and selected late in the design cycle. This approach no longer meets the demands of today’s wireless systems, which require precise timing synchronization across subsystems such as RF front ends, GNSS receivers, and application processors.
At the same time, engineers must support a growing range of frequency requirements. This often leads to the use of multiple oscillators or clock generators, increasing BOM complexity and contributing to system noise.
Many mobile systems must operate under mechanical and environmental stressors such as drops, thermal cycling, vibration, and airflow fluctuations. Quartz-based timing devices are vulnerable to drift and instability under these conditions and often require external protection, e.g., mechanical shielding or thermal isolation. GNSS performance is especially sensitive to timing jitter and thermal error, which can disrupt satellite signals and degrade location accuracy.
Low-power operation and electromagnetic-interference (EMI) compliance are also key design requirements. These constraints add complexity to development and validation when relying on quartz-based timing solutions.
Consolidating Timing: Four Outputs, One MEMS-Based Device
Devices like the SiT30100 reduce timing complexity by integrating multiple clocking functions into a single 2.22-mm2 MEMS-based chip (see figure). Offering advantages over traditional quartz-based timing solutions, the SiT30100 replaces up to four discrete clock sources. Each output is independently programmable to 19.2, 38.4, or 76.8 MHz — frequencies commonly used in GNSS, RF transceivers, and baseband processors. This reduces board space and simplifies PCB routing.
By embedding a MEMS resonator, the SiT30100 eliminates the need for an external quartz device. This improves resistance to shock, vibration, and dynamic temperature variation, while simplifying layout and improving long-term frequency stability.
And a built-in temperature-to-digital converter (TDC) continuously feeds data to a compensation engine, maintaining frequency stability within ±0.5 ppm. This helps enhance GNSS accuracy and shortens satellite lock times under dynamic thermal conditions.
Individual output enables pin-scan power-down independently without additional logic. This allows designers to gate off unused clock domains, reducing EMI and supporting dynamic power scaling in multimodal wireless systems and SoC platforms. Rated from −30 to +90°C, the SiT30100 delivers exceptional performance across consumer and industrial thermal environments without heatsinks or specialized enclosures.
What Integration Means for Designers
Integrating multiple clock sources into a single MEMS-based device may not seem necessary at first glance. But in compact systems where space, resilience, and accuracy are critical, this level of timing integration is increasingly essential. The SiT30100 reduces BOM count and minimizes timing variation across subsystems, particularly in mobile designs where GNSS accuracy, wireless synchronization, and RF performance are closely linked.
Highly integrated timing solutions reduce downstream challenges in complex clocking architectures. With fewer components, designers face lower risk of signal-integrity issues, layout revisions, and thermal anomalies. This approach simplifies verification, shortens development cycles, and reduces cost.
Looking Ahead
Many mobile and connected systems are increasingly autonomous and location-aware to meet users’ demands. These capabilities place greater demands on timing subsystems, including tighter synchronization, higher frequency accuracy, and improved environmental resilience.
Incorporating precision timing devices early in the design cycle extends battery life as well as supporting higher system reliability and consistent performance under dynamic conditions. The SiT30100 enables engineers to address this complexity by streamlining RF architecture and optimizing timing accuracy in mobile and GNSS-enabled designs.