Sand 9 was founded in 2007 to develop precision MEMS timing devices. The company is a spin-out from Boston University, founded by Raj Mohanty, Professor of Physics. The company’s goal is to completely eliminate discrete quartz components in cellular, GPS and other mobile applications. The company has 35 people employees.

Sand 9 received $2 million in seed capital from General Catalyst Partners and Khosla Ventures. In July 2008, the company secured $8 million in Series A funding led by Flybridge Capital and including General Catalyst and Khosla. In 2010, Sand 9 secured $12M in Series B funding led by Commonwealth Capital Ventures and including existing investors. In June 2012, the company raised $23 million in Series C financing, led by Intel Capital with significant participation from Vulcan Capital along with existing investors and CSR.

Despite quartz crystals’ longevity and dominance, they suffer from many weaknesses such as lack of integration, limits to miniaturization, and performance susceptibility to shock, vibration, EMI, high temperatures, activity dips/hysteresis, and more. Targeting a $4+ billion market opportunity with its piezoelectric MEMS timing products, Sand 9 argues that its products outperform both legacy quartz timing devices and other MEMS-based solutions.

To date, MEMS timing devices have failed to achieve the combination of temperature stability, low phase noise, and frequency accuracy required for a Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator (TCXO) alternative. Traditional MEMS timing devices are based on mature electrostatic technology, which suffers from thermal stability, high noise, low reliability, high current drain, and high cost. In contrast, Sand 9’s piezoelectric MEMS technology has excellent thermal stability, low noise, small die size, high reliability and low current drain.

Sand 9 recently unveiled its first MEMS timing products specifically designed to meet the stringent performance, cost, size and reliability requirements of mobile phones and low-power wireless connectivity devices such as Bluetooth Smart. The company believes the TM361 and TM061 are also the only timing products that support integration with mobile and wireless connectivity chipsets, conserving board space and reducing the bill of materials.

All Sand 9 devices feature very high shock and vibration immunity and do not have activity dips. AT cut quartz frequency stability is typically 20 ppm over temperature. Pure silicon resonator frequency stability is 3,000 ppm, according to Sand 9. With a patented design that uses a layer of SiO2 to mechanically compensate its MEMS resonator, Sand 9 achieves frequency stability of < 200 ppm, which is adequate to meet the performance requirements of its target applications. The Sand 9 WLCSP can be co-packaged with complementary ICs. The silicon cap provides a hermetic seal and can include additional circuit functionality.

The TM361, the first product based on Sand 9’s Temperature Sensing MEMS Resonator (TSMR) platform, targets the replacement of temperature-sensing crystals (TSXs) for cellular transceiver and GPS/GNSS/WiFi wireless connectivity combo chips. The TM361 is a MEMS resonator with a built-in temperature sensor and heater for temperature compensation and calibration. The device offers excellent phase noise performance to meet cellular transceiver and GPS/GNSS/WiFi combo chip performance requirements. Offered in a 0.76 x 0.68 x 0.50 mm WLCSP, the TM361 is designed for cost-sensitive SiP applications.

The TM361 offers 10x better thermal coupling than quartz by physically integrating the temperature detector with the MEMS resonator. This results in high-precision temperature compensation at < 10 ppb/s. Quartz resonators use discrete temperature sensor and heater elements, which slows reaction time. Unlike quartz crystals, the device does not suffer from activity dips/hysteresis, which improves GPS-lock and reduces LTE packet loss, enabling far fewer service disruptions. Best-in-class shock and vibration resistance (< 0.1 ppb/G) supports use in harsh environments.

The TM061, the first product based on Sand 9’s MEMS Resonator (MR) platform, meets the demands of the Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The TM061 is a MEMS resonator only, and does not include a temperature sensor, heater or oscillator circuit. It serves as a quartz crystal replacement for low-power wireless connectivity applications such as Bluetooth Smart.

With the same footprint as the TM361, the TM061 is 50% smaller than the smallest conventional quartz device. The device is several orders of magnitude more resistant to shock and vibration than quartz, making it ideally suited to wireless sports and fitness applications. The TM061 requires less than 300 μA. Like all MEMS timing products from Sand 9, it can be co-packaged and overmolded without impacting performance, providing the size reduction required to enable the IoT.

Sand 9 also unveiled a new platform on its roadmap, the Temperature Sensing MEMS Oscillator (TSMO). TSMO products will include an oscillator circuit to guarantee phase noise while providing another level of integration for mobile applications. As with TSMR products, TSMO products will meet the precision timing requirements of cellular transceivers and GPS/GNSS/WiFi combo ICs.

The TM061 will sample to lead customers in November 2013 and will be ramping to mass production in Q3’14. The TM361 will sample to lead customers in December 2013 and will be ramping to mass production in Q4’14. Globalfoundries fabricates the MEMS element and IBM fabricates the ASIC. Other technology partners include Ericsson, Analog Devices, CSR and Intel.

Vincent Graziani, CEO & President (previously CEO of VBrick & President & CEO at Sandburst, which was acquired by Broadcom)

Alex Erhart, EVP, Engineering & Operations (previously founder, CEO and VP of Engineering at Vivid Semiconductor, which was acquired by National Semiconductor and founder, CEO and EVP of Engineering at Validity Sensors)

Gerry Harder, VP of Operations (previously co-founder and VP of Operations at Vivid Semiconductor, Product Line Director for power management ICs at ON Semi, and Director of Operations at Cirrus Logic)

Juergen Schoepf, CTO (previously VP of Engineering at Synergy Microwave)

Jan Kuypers, Chief Science Officer (previously a research specialist at the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC) at the University of California at Berkeley)

Raj Mohanty, Ph.D., Co-founder (Professor of physics at Boston University)

Paul Hallee, CFO (previously CFO at VBrick, Boston-Power & Sandburst)

Alan Mond, EVP, Sales & Marketing (previously VP and GM for the Communications BU at Vectron International and VP of Sales and Marketing for Clarisay)

Matt Crowley, co-founder & VP of Business Development (previously Director of the Technology Development Fund at Boston University’s Office of Technology Development)