Addressing Automotive Requirements? Its About Time

The electronics market has always been a player in the automotive industry. Now, with autonomous and electric vehicles at the forefront of many automotive manufacturers design timelines, electronic components are at an increased demand while still being held to the strictest of quality and reliability standards.

SiT2024/25 Automotive Qualified Oscillators

Think Beyond Processors

Many engineers familiar with the technology being implemented in these applications are aware of high reliability processors, sensors, and wireless communication products. Keeping that in mind, quite frequently the silent heroes in automotive designs are the timing products. Automotive-qualified timing products adhere to strict AEC-Q100 qualifications, and for good reason. If the timing products can’t maintain their tight tolerances, the processors and sensors will have big operational problems.

In the case of automotive applications this can mean a processor not communicating data from a sensor to the system as designed, which can lead to unexpected operation in a circuit. In the design phase this means tweaking and testing to correct abnormal operation. Unfortunately, when humans are the passengers, if a system does not operate as designed either on an Arizona highway in August or a Minnesota backroad in January, the consequences can literally be life or death.

Quartz or MEMs

In this situation many quartz based timing solutions just don’t make the cut. The alternative is MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) based solutions. One of the leading suppliers of MEMS based timing products is SiTime which is available through DigiKey. SiTime has developed the SiT2024/25 series of MEMS oscillators specifically targeting the stringent qualifications of the automotive industry.

SiTime Automotive Oscillator Infographic

To that end, the SiT2024/25 oscillators are designed specifically for ASIL (Automotive Safety Integrity Level) compliant automotive applications. Whether your application is an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), in-vehicle Ethernet, or electronic control unit (ECU); SiTime’s automotive oscillators are 30 times more robust than their quartz based counterparts.

The SiT2024/25 series offers high-frequency range options available up to 137 MHz, superior stability at ±20 PPM, and an extremely wide temperature range of -55 to 125°C. Additionally, these oscillators tout one of the best vibration sensitivities in the industry at 0.1 ppb/g with a 50,000 g shock and 70 g vibration resistance, making them a foolproof timing solution for automotive under-the-hood systems.

Taking chances in the automotive industry is what has brought us to the point of automated vehicles. That being said, the risk of not utilizing the highest quality automotive (AEC-Q100) qualified timing solutions in high vibration/high temperature applications can be detrimental not only to the design, but to prospective customers using your end product.