Symmetricom Announces Commercial Time-Scale System

February 10, 2010

Symmetricom, Inc., a supplier of precise time and frequency technologies, has announced the Time-Scale System, a fully integrated redundant nanosecond-level timing solution. Designed for international metrology, aerospace, and defense customers, the system combines multiple high-performance atomic clocks in a time scale that drives a local real-time clock (RTC).

Comparable to the world's best national laboratories that compute a local time scale steered to agree with Universal Coordinated Time (UTC), Symmetricom said, the Time-Scale System is designed for national timing laboratories in countries that need to establish traceable time. It is also designed for government or civilian agencies that require precision timing capabilities independent of a GNSS.

"Symmetricom's multi-clock turn-key system provides a real-time local UTC time scale, applying the most accurate GNSS and SatCom techniques for measuring offsets between geographically dispersed clocks," said Samuel Stein, chief technologist at Symmetricom's Timing, Test and Measurement Division. "Our solution offers performance equivalent to national timing labs with fast deployment, low ownership costs and a single point of responsibility for all system support. As the only supplier that owns all the IP for the steering algorithm and manufactures the instruments and clocks necessary to build these complex timing systems, Symmetricom is able to deliver a standard system in less time as we only have to integrate the hardware and perform system tests."

The Time-Scale System's design features enables frequency stability, phase-noise performance, and reliability in a system fully integrated into one or more instrument racks. A timing quality GNSS receiver provides information used to steer the system output to UTC and generates common view data so that the multiple clocks can be reported to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) for inclusion in the international time scale. The system can also be steered to UTC using two-way satellite modems.

Benefits of the Time-Scale System are:

Clock redundancy: This includes multiple high-performance clocks (Cesium and/or Hydrogen Maser) as well as a method to periodically compare clocks and steer the system output using time transfer techniques for ultimate reliability.
Traceable time: UTC (local) time and the individual clock times are reported to the BIPM so the clocks become part of the international time composite that is UTC. Symmetricom's KAS-2 time-scale algorithm provides optimum real-time estimates of the time of each clock. Its advantage over every other time-scale algorithm is its use of two weights per clock to optimize both the short and long-term stability of the local time scale.
Modular solution: This provides the ability to cost-effectively plug and play components to tailor the solution to a specific need; Symmetricom offers a variety of frequency standards and configuration options.
Resident expertise: With Symmetricom's resident expertise, customers do not require a high-level in-house technologist to install, maintain and support the system.

Locations that desire to be incorporated in UTC must have precision clocks and must follow rules established by BIPM for calculating and reporting the clock data. Symmetricom's Time-Scale System includes the hardware and software required to meet these requirements.

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