AMC "Atomic Master Clock"

In the spirit of Breguet’s inspiration of more than 220 years ago, URWERK has designed and is producing the very first master-slave clock and wristwatch, in which an atomic clock, via a complex mechanical linkage, duplicates all of the functions of Breguet’s most advanced sympathique clocks in one device: it winds, sets, and regulates an URWERK watch, which rests in a cradle in the case of the atomic clock itself. Both the atomic master clock and the watch have been specially designed for the AMC project, and together they represent the first time that a mechanical watch and an atomic clock have been created to perform these three operations,  via mechanical linkages, on a purely mechanical watch. 

The atomic master clock component of the URWERK AMC is in an enclosure measuring  45cm x 30cm x 18cm; it weighs approximately 35 kilos and the case is solid aluminum. The clock, developed in collaboration with TimeStandard, is a dual oscillator type, using ions of YIG (yttrium iron garnet)  and rubidium, and has been engineered so as to allow it to be adaptable to any voltage, so that it can be used worldwide (at any voltage, from 90 to 240 volts). A portable atomic clock must contend with factors ranging from temperature change to variations in power supply, and aging of the atomic timing package itself. Even with all of these potential disturbances, however, the AMC atomic clock will keep nearly perfect time – guaranteed to within one second in 317 years.