 |
It is surprisingly difficult to find reliable numbers about the MEMS market
in the Net. What one finds quite easily, however, are announcements of detailed studies about the MEMS market that
you can buy for a price of several 1 000 $. |
|
 |
That makes it clear that some kind of MEMS "gold-rush" is happening
right now. If you know where the nuggets are, you won't tell anybody but go for it yourself. If you can't do that, you try
to sell your treasure map. |
|
Nevertheless, here are a few numbers that seem to be trustworthy: |
|
The worldwide MEMS
systems market is expected to
reach $ 95 · 109 by 2010. |
|
|
If we look at the device
market in 2005, we have the following numbers (partially calculated from other data): |
| |
| Region | Gross
109 $ | % | | USA | 2,6 | 53 |
| Japan | 1,1 | 20 | | Europe | 0.815 | 16 |
| Singapore | 0.45 | 11 | | S | 4.22 |
100 |
|
|
Besides the market for the MEMS devices, there is a market for all the
things you need to make MEMS devices. |
|
|
You need machinery or equipment for the front-end and
back-end process, and you need materials. Front-end means more or less everything going
on in the clean room, back-end describes essentially the packaging of the raw chips - an often quite sophisticated process
in MEMS technology. |
|
|
| Area | Gross
106 $ | Share | | Front-end | ? |
53 % | | Back-end | ? | 31 % | | Materials |
» 270 | |
|
|
|
No numbers for the machinery, but 270 Mio $ is really money, too; and the gross for
the equipment is certainly much higher. |
|
Here is an overview from the "Silicon Technology I" script of Prof. Wagner, belonging to the Master Study course. |
| |
|
|
The discrepancy to the numbers above comes from unclear definitions: Are "RW"
(reading and writing) heads included in the numbers above? Are we dicussing devices
or systems? Are we discussing just the product market or also the "making MEMS" market? |
|
|
Whatever. Two things are clear enough: There is a lot of money in MEMS, and it is a
rapidly growing market. |
|
|
The "Semicondcutor International" in March 2008 agrees: Below
are some data concerning the MEMS sensor and actuator market. |
| |
 |
From IC Insights Inc. (Scottsdale, Ariz.) as published in the
Semiconductor International Newsbreak. March 26th 2008 |
|
|
|
Note that between "Units" and "Sales" we have roughly a factor of 3.
There might be a mistake here: Units probably should not have the $ sign - it's just how many devices are made. If this
is true, we see that a MEMS chip sells for about 3 $. |
| | |
|
The message is loud and clear: The future belongs to MEMS (and Solar,
and ...) - and that may be part of your future as materials scientist, too. |
| | |
© H. Föll (Semiconductor Technology - Script)
With frame
7.1.1 What is MEMS?