Wearable Electronics


Component count amplifi es the footprint problem. A design that deploys separate timing components for each functional domain not only consumes more board area in aggregate and increases BOM, but also means more landing pads, more routing and more potential for interference.


Programmable MEMS oscillators – in chip- scale packages as small as 1.5 × 0.8 mm – are serving multiple frequency requirements from a single device to directly reduce this burden. They eliminate the external load capacitors traditionally required by the oscillator circuit. These miniaturised architectures are a direct response to current design trends, which are seeing wearables transition into ever more compact and discreet formats.


Trends in ultra-miniaturised timing components


The clear direction of travel towards miniaturisation presents a number of challenging form factors for designers of consumer electronics. Advanced fi nger-worn wearables such as smart rings offer a screen-free, discreet smartwatch alternative which excels at everything from providing highly accurate sleep tracking to body temperature sensing


invariably an enabler, providing the smallest footprints. Other trends the technology supports include clothing-mounted sensors, which present the challenges of wash cycles, mechanical fl exing and humidity; and in-ear wearables, where timing requirements are driven by audio latency and left-right channel synchronisation, with an available PCB area measured in single-digit square millimetres.


Future integration: co-packaging timing


Smart ring


and daytime stress monitoring. In these devices, the entire PCB — including processor, sensors, wireless radio, battery, and timing components — must fi t within a ring band typically 6-8 mm wide and no more than 2-3 mm in height. Even in the absence of a display to accommodate, the remaining circuitry is packed into a curved band with a total internal volume that may be less than 0.5 cm³. At these dimensions, they are signifi cantly larger than most jewelry rings, so future miniaturization is still required.


Disposable and reusable health patches monitor and treat conditions, helping to avoid invasive procedures or bulky equipment.


They are used for applications such as CGM, ECG recording, respiratory rate tracking and drug delivery monitoring. These printed electronics have space constraints due to their requirement of fl exibility, with patches requiring placement on a thin substrate to conform to skin curvature. Timing accuracy in health patches is clinically signifi cant: for example, CGM sensors sample glucose concentration at fi xed intervals over periods of 7-14 days, and any drift in the sampling clock introduces measurement error.


There is an abundance of other examples. In the most highly constrained wearable applications, MEMS-based precision timing is


Looking ahead, we see the most signifi cant short-term integration trend as the movement of the timing reference off the PCB entirely, into the semiconductor package itself. MEMS resonators available in known-good-die format can now be co-packaged directly inside SoC and MCU packages during assembly. This eliminates the discrete timing component from the board; freeing two pins on the host device, reducing parasitics, and removing the assembly cost of a separate component. In wearables, every decision that extends battery life, reduces board area, or improves measurement accuracy contributes to product viability. Timing components are now contributing meaningfully to all three. www.sitime.com


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www.cieonline.co.uk Components in Electronics September 2026 41


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