SiTime Corporation’s Emerald Platform is the first MEMS oven-controlled oscillator (OCXO) in the industry. OCXOs offer the pinnacle of performance in timing and are critical to the reliable operation of all communications networks. However, quartz-based OCXOs are extremely sensitive to environmental stressors such as vibration, temperature changes, and shock, which can degrade network performance, reduce uptime, and impact mission-critical services such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). SiTime’s Emerald OCXOs solve these problems.

As mobile operators move into 5G and edge computing, they will require much tighter time synchronization in the radio equipment, which necessitates the use of OCXOs. Prior to 5G, this OCXO was deployed in a well-controlled environment. Now, the computing, core network, and radio will be collapsed into a system that may be deployed in an uncontrolled environment such as a tower, rooftop, or lamppost. These OCXOs will be able to handle exposure to vibration and temperature extremes in these environments. Legacy quartz OCXOs are custom built from the ground up. There are severe limitations on the availability of features, such as frequencies, output types, operating temperature, and in-system control. SiTime’s Emerald Platform MEMS OCXOs do not have these limitations. Using a programmable analog architecture, the Emerald OCXO offers any frequency between 1 MHz and 220 MHz, ensuring that the customer can select the optimal frequency for their application. The device also offers two output types, LVCMOS and clipped sine-wave, for optimal board performance.