Abstract
Since the beginning of work on MEMS over 70 years ago, there has been an interest in using MEMS resonators as time references. Despite promising early results, it took decades to address the issues that contribute to frequency drift and instability of MEMS resonators. Ultimately, packaging became the primary limitation, and a novel wafer-scale encapsulation process provided some important improvements. Once packaging enabled basic stability and performance, it was necessary to improve the basic temperature-dependence of the elastic constants of silicon, which is best accomplished by doping. These developments opened the door to ultra stable MEMS resonators for many applications, laid the foundation for commercial success at SiTime, and provides an opportunity to approach timing applications that currently require atomic clocks or access to the GPS time reference signal.
This talk will describe the path and key contributions to modern MEMS-based timing products, and opportunities to extend this technology to critical next-generation opportunities in telecommunications, inertial sensors and other applications.
About the Speaker
Thomas W. Kenny received the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989. From 1989 to 1993, he was with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and in 1994, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, where he directs Microsensor-based research on resonators, wafer-scale packaging, micro mechanical sensors, and novel fabrication techniques for micromechanical structures.
He was Founder and CTO of Cooligy (now a division of Emerson), and Founder of SiTime Corporation (currently on the NASDAQ as SITM). He is Founder, recent CEO and Board Chair of Applaud Medical, currently developing non-invasive therapies for kidney stones. He has authored or coauthored over 250 scientific papers and is a holder of 50 issued patents, and has been advisor to more than 75 graduated PhD students from Stanford. He teaches classes at Stanford on Sensors, Robotics and related topics.
Along the way, he’s had some other unusual experiences and opportunities, including being part of a team that won the 1999 national championship and 2000 world championship in Ultimate Frisbee in the CoEd division. From 2006-2010, he was a Program Manager in the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA, where he led programs on Thermal Management, Nanofabrication, Manipulation of the Casimir Force, and the DARPA Young Faculty Award. In 2015, he was appointed as Senior Associate Dean of Engineering for Education and Student Affairs at Stanford, where his focus has been on leveraging resources and incentives to improve Diversity and Inclusion in Stanford’s School of Engineering. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2022.
Host: Professor Gaurav Bahl
