RUSNANO has announced its investment partnership with SiTime Corporation, an American company, for the development of electronic components for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for use in sensors, computing and telecommunications equipment.
The SiTime Corporation is an industry leader in the development of MEMS-based high-performance oscillators and silicon timing solutions. The project has a total budget of $22 million of which RUSNANO has invested up to $15 million. The resources will be directed toward expanding SiTime’s research base, broadening the geography of its sales, and establishing a development center in Russia.
Under the terms of the investment agreement approved by RUSNANO’s Executive Board, SiTime will establish a new subdivision in Russia where it will design next generation of MEMS-based oscillators. The company currently has R&D centers in California and Ukraine. The products that SiTime designs are produced by Jazz Semiconductors in the US and TSMC in Taiwan. The project does not include plans to build proprietary production capacity in Russia.
SiTime specializes in clock generators used in data transmission equipment. Most systems of this kind employ quartz resonators, produced and assembled individually using mechanical means. Quartz resonators are the only component that cannot be integrated into a CMOS chip—the generators are too large and require installation in their own ceramic packaging. SiTime has resolved this problem with MEMS-nanoresonators which can be integrated into any system-in-package or multi-chip-module CMOS crystal. SiTime products are stable at high temperatures, offer precision digit frequency control, have long service lives and consume little energy.
The RUSNANO-SiTime project will sell infrastructure solutions for telecommunications, computing equipment, navigation systems, sensor networks for environmental control, and many other applications requiring precise frequency generators. The global market for synchronization devices—including resonators, generators, and synchronizing chips—is estimated at $5 billion. The Russian market for oscillators is estimated at $80 million.
About SiTime
SiTime Corporation, an analog semiconductor company, offers MEMS-based silicon timing solutions that replace legacy quartz products. With 85% market share and over 45 million devices shipped, SiTime is driving the $5 Billion timing market’s transition to 100% silicon-based timing.
SiTime’s configurable solutions enable customers to differentiate their products with higher performance, reduced size and better reliability. The rich feature set and flexibility of our solutions allows customers to consolidate their supply-chain, reducing cost of ownership and time to market. By using standard semiconductor processes and high volume plastic packaging, SiTime offers the best availability and shortest lead times in the industry.
Top-tier manufacturers are experiencing these benefits and recognize SiTime as The Smart Timing Choice. See more at: www.sitime.com.
* This press release was prepared in cooperation with EWDN and is available for distribution courtesy of EWDN.
