SiTime and Intel collaborate on MEMS timing for 5G
MEMS timing specialist, SiTime is collaborating with Intel, working together on integrating timing solutions for Intel’s 5G multi-mode radio modems. The collaboration will also apply to Intel LTE, millimeter-wave wireless, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GNSS solutions.
5G is expected to transform communications, with new levels of connectivity. Areas from smart cities and intelligent wind farms, to agriculture and hospitals, the Internet of Things and connected infrastructures will generate zettabytes of data from an estimated 50 billion devices, says SiTime.
To realise this transformation, networks must become faster, more agile, and much denser, utilising more equipment. Systems will be deployed closer to connected devices and in uncontrolled locations such as on streetlight, traffic lights, rooftops, stadiums, and parking garages. In these settings, 5G devices will be subject to environmental stressors such as vibration, high temperature, and rapid temperature changes.
SiTime’s MEMS timing solutions enhance system performance in the presence of stressors such as vibration, high temperature, and rapid thermal transients, which can disrupt the timing signal and result in network reliability issues, lower data throughput, and connectivity drops. SiTime is to provide its MEMS solutions, with patented MEMS timing technology, to Intel’s 5G modem business, to meet the performance requirements of emerging 5G radio modem platforms.
SiTime’s transformative MEMS timing solutions have proven to offer up to 20 times better robustness, reliability, and performance in the presence of such stressors, and are crucial to the successful deployment of 5G, reports SiTime.
“Our collaboration with SiTime on MEMS-based silicon timing solutions will help our customers build leading 5G platforms to best take advantage of the increased performance and capacity that the 5G NR standard brings,” said Dr. Cormac Conroy, corporate vice president and general manager of the Communication and Devices Group at Intel. The project will address all areas, he contines: “Intel’s modem technology and our collaboration with SiTime is helping to enable new mobile and consumer experiences, and enterprise and industrial use cases.”
“Intel is already building 5G’s future and has the scale to meet 5G’s scope,” said Rajesh Vashist, CEO at SiTime. “Our collaboration enables SiTime to align our MEMS timing solutions roadmap with Intel’s 5G platforms,” he added, described the partnership as “potent” for future growth and one that enables successful deployment of 5G.
