SiTime Corporation has announced the Epoch Platform, designed to solve complex timing issues and disrupt 100-year-old quartz-based technology. The Platform is a MEMS-based, oven-controlled oscillator (OCXO), designed to deliver an ultra-stable clock to datacentre and network infrastructure equipment. Over time, Epoch technology will be extended to other markets such as aerospace, defense and industrial.
SiTime’s CEO and chairman, Rajesh Vashist, said: “For many years, customers lived with the shortcomings of existing timing technologies because there were no viable alternatives. They compromised on real-world performance, reliability and power, to name just a few.
“SiTime’s Epoch Platform changes the game, delivering higher performance and reliability with lower power that was unavailable until now. These benefits are the result of a half-decade of engineering investment and a systems-based development approach that combines MEMS, analog, packaging and algorithms.”
Precision timing is critical to network performance and reliability. All nodes in the network must be synchronized in time. For example, all nodes in a 5G network must always be synchronized within hundreds of nanoseconds, which is 10x more stringent than 4G. This level of synchronization must be maintained despite network outages. By delivering up to 2x better performance, 9x smaller size and 3x lower power in applications such as datacentre switches and routers, 5G base stations and core infrastructure, the Epoch Platform sets a new bar in performance and reliability.