According to Yole Développement, the market for MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems) components is projected to grow to $22 billion by 2020, at an annual rate of 20 percent. A key reason for this rapid growth is that silicon MEMS components enable exciting new functions in a dramatically smaller size. For example, in the rapidly growing smartphone and wearable segments, MEMS components are used for timing, image stabilization, navigation, orientation and gesture recognition. MEMS components are turning passive electronics into intelligent, dynamic platforms that we interact with and are crucial to our daily lives.

Every electronic product requires a timing source, creating a large $5 billion market for timing components. Silicon MEMS timing solutions offer more features, higher performance, smaller size and better reliability. With these inherent benefits, MEMS timing devices are rapidly replacing legacy, non-MEMS products. SiTime, with 80 percent market share in the MEMS timing market, is leading the transformation of the timing industry.

Siliconization and its Effects

Silicon has displaced many incumbent technologies. Past examples of siliconization include the replacement of film cameras with digital cameras, hard disk drives with solid-state drives and vacuum tubes with transistors and integrated circuits. Not only do silicon-based solutions do things better, they do things that have never been done before.

Imagine every electronic product in your house always shows the same time and you never have to adjust your clocks. Also imagine that the time on all these products is accurate to 1 second per month, which is just not possible today. SiTime's silicon MEMS timing solutions are enabling this future.