SiTime and Intel to collaborate on MEMs timing for 5G

SiTime, a provider of MEMS timing, and Intel are to work together on integrating timing solutions for Intel’s 5G multi-mode radio modems, with additional applicability to Intel LTE, millimeter-wave wireless, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GNSS solutions.

"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.

SiTime’s MEMS timing solutions are used to enhance system performance where stressors such as vibration, high temperature, and rapid thermal transients, can disrupt the timing signal and result in network reliability issues, lower data throughput, and even connectivity drops.

The MEMS solutions being provided to Intel’s 5G modem business, are intended to meet the much higher performance requirements of emerging 5G radio modem platforms.

In order for 5G to be successfully rolled out, networks will need to become faster, more agile, and much denser, using more equipment. Systems will be deployed closer to connected devices and in uncontrolled locations such as on streetlamps, traffic lights, rooftops, stadiums, and parking garages.

In these settings, 5G devices will be subject to a range of environmental stressors, all of which will create demand for new, complex and higher-performance timing solutions to ensure that the deployment of 5G is successful.