Market Trends

In the face of a collapsing mainstream semiconductor sector over the past 18 months, the MEMS business held its own and remained flat.  While this is great news for MEMS overall, for the many MEMS companies that made production infrastructure investments in 2006 and 2007, flat business made 2008 & 2009 really difficult.

The MEMS industry remains highly diverse and as such the impact of the financial collapse and economic recession has been varied.  While established applications have struggled, new ways to package and integrate MEMS devices in systems buttressed the industry.  New MEMS devices are indeed growing very fast - 2 axis gyros, MEMS IMU and MEMS Oscillator to name a few.

Reviewing key players - several companies stopped their MEMS production entirely or in part (Delphi, Continental, Colibrys, Systron Donner Automotive) while others saw their businesses enter a huge growth phase (InvenSense, Kionix, STMicroelectronics, SiTime). All in all, booming new business was entirely offset by flagging established business with the net result flat.

Innovation in MEMS is changing: few totally new devices are now launched and most new applications are linked to new usage of existing devices (human machine interface, replacement of existing technologies). With packaging averaging more than 40% of the cost of a MEMS device strong efforts are being put into adapting the packaging to drive out cost and enter new applications (like mobile applications).

In parallel MEMS foundries are coming out of the economic downturn in a strong position: more system manufacturers have made the decision to stop internal MEMS manufacturing and are now working with MEMS foundries.  MEMS foundries are extremely active with these new customers.  As can be expected, this growth is attracting new players like TSMC, UMC and others.  In addition, wafer level packaging and 3D chip stacking using through silicon vias (TSV) are also a growth driver for the MEMS foundries.  Driven by cost reduction goals needed for consumer applications investments in 8" infrastructure continued despite the downturn. 

Report feature

«Status of the MEMS industry 2009» provides a 360° analysis of the evolution of MEMS applications and markets:

·         Updated data on MEMS markets,

·         Analysis of the industry from the manufacturing and innovation points of view,

·         Analysis of the strategies of the main players,

·         Evolution of the equipment markets for MEMS production

·         MEMS packaging trends

For the 6^th year, ?Status of the MEMS industry? is the only publication analyzing the MEMS industry, from key technical aspects to business strategies of the TOP30 MEMS companies.

Market Trends

The MEMS markets are flat since 2007: from $7.1B in 2007, to $6.8B in 2008 to an estimated $6.9B in 2009.  But that result is the sum of a huge plus in consumer electronics applications which grew 25% CAGR and a huge minus with established automotive business taking a big hit.

A restart of the net growth is expected after 2010, with a CAGR of 12% in the next 4 years.

The production equipment market is extremely low at $140M (in 2008, 2009 and 2010) and will restart in 2011:

1.      The production infrastructure in place is sufficient to absorb the growth for the next 2 years and we will have to wait until 2011 for a significant restart of the MEMS production equipment market

2.      The MEMS foundry growth in 2008 and 2009 was limited at 6% (after years of 30% growth annually) and will restart in 2010 with more than 25% CAGR expected in the next 4 years

Report highlights

·         Analysis of the business trends and expected evolution of the 15 major applications areas of MEMS devices (pressure sensor, ink jet, accelerometer, gyroscopes, silicon microphone, microfluidic devices, thermography, micro displays & picoprojector, optical MEMS, RF MEMS?)

·         Long term vision of MEMS markets 2008-2020: evolution of the MEMS markets, current drivers of the industy.

·         Technology and business trends at equipment and materials level.

·         Detailed analysis of the evolution of the MEMS foundry business and of the main players: What is the strategy of each of the TOP30 MEMS manufacturers?

·         Evolution of MEMS packaging: How MEMS companies are learning from changes in the packaging fields (TSV, WLP, Si Interposers...).

·          Analysis of the latest 12 month M&A in MEMS and venture capital investments in MEMS.

Report Methodology

"Status of the MEMS industry" is a compilation of the day to day contacts of the 20 full time analysts of YOLE, interviewing more than 2,500 companies per year, from system integrators to device manufacturers to technology developers the market & technical information has been gathered directly at:

• System manufacturers: automotive equipment manufacturers, IT equipment and medical device manufacturers...

• Device manufacturers: key MEMS inertial sensor manufacturers worldwide

• Equipment & materials suppliers for the MEMS industry

This 2009 edition is also the result of the daily work of the analysts at Yole who update the forecasts as soon as the information is obtained. Data from thousands of interviews every year (50 to 70 industrial interviews every week) provide the primary data we are using for analysis and forecasts.

Who should buy ?

·         The executives of MEMS companies to look at the complete MEMS business and the major evolution that could impact the industry in the long term

·         The technology team of MEMS companies, looking to learn from the development of the other parts of the MEMS industry

·         The end users, trying to understand the evolution of the MEMS industry and find data on each application and who is doing what

·         The marketing and technology team of equipment and materials manufacturers, looking to have a complete picture of MEMS world and the key metrics of the industry