MNS Roger Grace v Final DR 18/12/08 15:12 Page 29
MICRONANOSYSTEMS
29
MEMS based
systems
solutions:
Thinking
outside the
chip
The MEMS industry continues to grow but not everyone appears to
understand its dynamics, assuming it to be similar to the dynamics of
the semiconductor industry. This could not be further from the truth.
Roger H. Grace, President of Roger Grace Associates discusses the
MEMS report card and MEMS industry opportunities.
M
ost recently, a number of new “killer Where most analysts had projected rapidly expanding volume of
applications” for MEMS have occurred. various MEMS-based optical components that would be the
Traditionally, the automotive industry has heart of the optical system, the market never was realised.
driven a number of significant large volume applications e.g. Reviewing the various market research reports (including ours)
manifold absolute pressure sensors were the first, followed by we note that the MEMS market has been estimated to be
airbag accelerometers. Tyre pressure monitoring (TPM) is approximately $7 Billion US in 2008 while the semiconductor
expected to provide significant opportunities for MEMS and device market has been estimated at over $200 Billion US. One
MEMS-based systems providers. However, with the advent of asks why this significant discrepancy exists for technologies
rapidly decreasing MEMS costs the consumer electronics those were discovered within a mere 10 years of each other.
market has been the new “white knight” of the MEMS business. Roger Grace Associates has attempted to determine the
Portable handsets, MP3 players, digital cameras and games reason for this and as a result has created a “MEMS Industry
have been gobbling up large amounts of MEMS devices Report Card” which first appeared in 1998.
[1]
The report card
including low-g accelerometers, microphones and gyros. has tracked on a yearly basis the performance of the MEMS
Even so with these new large volume opportunity recently industry vis-à-vis 14 critical success factors and assigned grades
surfacing, one might ask the question why has it taken so long for each using a “Delphi” market research technique. Briefly,
for MEMS to finally become commercialised. We have this technique uses a small selection of research experts (in our
conducted research in this area and addressed the case it is approximately 55) from a worldwide data base that
commercialisation timetable for a number of MEMS products represents users, suppliers of MEMS, materials and equipment
(see Figure 1). suppliers and other MEMS infrastructure organisations e.g.
We have found that the mean time for commercialisation is foundries. Figure 2 presents the most recent report card for
around 25 years from discovery to full commercialisation. The 2007 (the 2008 report card is planned for March 2009).
first manifestation of MEMS was via the discovery of the Based on my involvement in conducting the many interviews
piezoresitive effect in Silicon by Charles Smith of Bell Labs with associated with creating this report card, I believe some of the
his 1954 paper in Physical Review. In the more than 50 years more important barriers to commercialisation of MEMS has
that have transpired, the MEMS industry has gone through been the lack of adequate attention to design for manufacturing
various bubbles, the most recent being the optical telecom one. and test. The good news is that the grade for DfM&T has slowly
December 2008 / January 2009
www.micronanosystems.info
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