Silicon Labs Expands Automotive Timing Portfolio with New SmartClock Technology

By Tiera Oliver

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

January 25, 2021

News

Silicon Labs Expands Automotive Timing Portfolio with New SmartClock Technology

New SmartClock features are designed to address need for clock monitoring and fault detection

Silicon Labs introduced new SmartClock features to its family of AEC-Q100 qualified Si5332-AM clock generators, designed to expand the capabilities of silicon-based automotive timing solutions. The new SmartClock technology actively monitors reference clocks to detect potential faults and provides built-in clock redundancy. 

If a fault condition is detected, SmartClock shares this information with an external system microcontroller or system safety manager, which can in turn instruct the Si5332-AM to switch to a redundant backup source, ensuring the system continues to operate safely.

In applications where health monitoring of only a single frequency is needed, the new Si5118-AM SmartClock synthesizer can be implemented between the reference clock source and endpoint. Per the company, these new features help to address timing challenges in automotive networking, advanced driver assistance systems, automated driving, and IVI/digital cockpit electronic designs.

The following new products and features are now available:

  • SmartClock health monitoring, fault detection, and local backup reference are customizable features in the Si5332-AM clock generator family. These features can be enabled using Silicon Labs ClockBuilder Pro configuration software.
  • New standalone Si5118-AM SmartClock Synthesizer
  • New 12-output version of the Si5332-AM clock generator
  • New 10-output version of the Si53350-AM buffer

For more information, visit: silabs.com/timing/automotive-timing-solutions.

Tiera Oliver, Associate Editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content edits, product news, and constructing stories. She also assists with newsletter updates as well as contributing and editing content for ECD podcasts and the ECD YouTube channel. Before working at ECD, Tiera graduated from Northern Arizona University where she received her B.S. in journalism and political science and worked as a news reporter for the university’s student led newspaper, The Lumberjack.

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