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Monday, December 18, 2006

"MEMS: Quartz, MEMS will meet"

A new entrant in the emerging timing-chip market plans to create the world's first hybrid timing chips that include both quartz crystals and MEMS components. Silicon Clocks Inc. is sampling its first timing chip, which is slated for mass production in 2007. The quartz crystal-based device will offer frequencies as high as 650 MHz, whereas existing quartz crystals peter out around 150 MHz. The chip has a unique architecture for which several patents have been filed, said company founder Andrew McCraith. In the future, the architecture will be extended to MEMS-based oscillators, he said, the first models of which will integrate multiple resonators on the same chip.
Text: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196603504