The working conditions at future accelerators will require the capability of taking data at unprecedented intensities and the possibility to distinguish events separated by a few tens of picoseconds will become of utmost importance. To face this challenge, intense R&D programs in silicon sensors are currently being carried on, with the ultimate goal of reaching concurrent excellent position and time resolutions. In this contribution I will review the status and the expectations on the production of fast silicon devices and I will point out the interplay of sensor and electronic parameters in the timing detector design. Two technologies, UFSD and APIX2, will be examined in depth. First results from recently produced prototypes will be shown and compared to simulation.