Researcher leading $1 million project to improve timing chips in electronic devices

Engineering professor Jalal Ahamed is leading a project exploring a

new material to keep electronic time.

A UWindsor researcher is leading a $1 million project that could position Canada as a global source for the timing chips that make all electronic devices tick.

Engineering professor Jalal Ahamed is partnering with Stathera Inc., a Montreal-based company that specializes in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Together they aim to develop an ultra-precise resonating oscillator to provide the stable reference frequency which is key for all communications and computation. The chip they are developing can be imbedded in microchips and mass produced for installation in cars, cell phones, computers, and every other smart electronic device imaginable.

“We aim to increase Canada’s competitiveness,” Dr. Ahamed said. “This would be manufactured in Canada and create new economic opportunities.”

Ahamed has been awarded $750,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Mitacs, a national non-profit organization that partners with academia, private industry, and government to provide training opportunities for the next generation of researchers. Stathera will also add $250,000 in in-kind contributions to the project.

Ahamed explains the research simply in this way: At the heart of all smart devices is a small time-keeping chip that wiggles at a fixed rate or frequency. Also needed is a method to ensure that wiggling is stable and consistent.

Ahamed’s project will research improvements to both. He proposes using silicon for the time-keeping resonating oscillator and using a technology called quantum-enhanced optomechanical sensing that manipulates light to sense whether the resonating oscillator is in fact wiggling at a fixed rate.

Time-keeping chips are typically made of quartz, a hard crystalline mineral which is difficult to machine therefore expensive to manufacture. Ahamed has been experimenting with replacing the quartz with silicon, a much less expensive alternative. To detect the ultra-small blips that occur in silicon oscillators, he will be using the quantum-enhanced sensing for noise-free and stable detection.

All this is necessary to provide a reference frequency. This reference frequency allows for the synchronization of events in digital circuits, the management of data transfer, the definition of radio frequencies, and the processing of signals — all processes necessary for connected devices to work.

“This five-year partnership aims to develop state of the art of timing devices,” said Anosh Daruwalla, director of MEMS engineering at Stathera Inc. “This project will employ one post-doctoral fellow and two PhD students, training the next generation of researchers in the fields of semiconductors.”

Courtesy: https://www.uwindsor.ca/dailynews/2025-01-07/researcher-leading-1-million-project-improve-timing-chips-electronic-devices