Tag-Heuer:
“In early 2012, TAG Heuer’s award-winning team of engineers and watch masters made a radical decision: to start from a blank page, forgetting the hairspring and the balance wheel to repeat, using mechanistic theory, Christian Huygens’ extraordinary accomplishment of 1657— the total reinvention of mechanical watch regulation. The MIKROGIRDER represents a complete departure from the conventional, 3-centuries-old Christiaan Huygens system, which today still reigns over the mechanical watch industry. Instead of a spiral shape in a classical hairspring, it uses a coupling blade/girder and excitatory blade/girder system working with a linear oscillator.
The Mikrogirder system vibrates isochronously at a very small angle, as opposed to a traditional watch, which vibrates at an angle of up to 320 degrees. The advantages are numerous. In a classic spiral hairspring system, the effect of gravity due to mass is a dominant issue. With the MIKROGIRDER, the problem no longer exists. There is no loss of amplitude and the movement’s frequency can be modulated on a very large spectrum of frequency without overburdening the power supply.
The result is a significant increase in precision (division of time) and performance (frequency accuracy and stability). The MIKROGIRDER energy performance will enable TAG Heuer chronographs to attain ultra-high frequencies never before dreamed possible.”