Over the last decade LED lighting has evolved from concept to mass production and is now replacing traditional lighting solutions at a rapid pace. LED lighting offers various benefits such as energy efficiency, extreme shock and vibration resistance, compact size, long life, and effective dimming. LEDs are also environmental-friendly since they do not contain hazardous substances such as mercury in fluorescent bulbs. Many LED lighting systems are built like a computer network and consist of a control unit, automatic motion detector/timer units, dimmers, and other modules that communicate to each other through a wired serial interface, like DALI or through low-speed wireless interfaces. This functionality requires microcontrollers (MCUs) or specialized IC chipsets that often require an external clock. There are various types of timing devices available today. Silicon MEMS-based oscillators offer high performance, reliability and flexibility, along with supply chain benefits, and are the preferred solution for many lighting systems.
LED lighting systems typically use DC-DC switching drivers that inject a high level of noise into the power supply network. This noise translates into a jitter on the oscillator clock output and may affect the performance of the system, especially communication interfaces. SiTime MEMS oscillators use internal voltage regulators and have much lower power supply noise sensitivity than quartz oscillators. Also, a single MEMS oscillator can provide a reference clock for multiple LED control units.