Revenue growth for MEMS is expected to be nothing short of explosive according to industry analysts and recent press reports. Jérémie Bouchaud, director and principal MEMS and sensors analyst for IHS says that this growth is driven by the fact that new MEMS are at the heart of today’s most exciting and fast-growing electronic products, from motion controlled video games, to tablet navigation systems, to tiny projectors embedded in smart phones. He predicts that by 2014, new MEMS will generate revenue of $1.4 billion.
Consumer electronics and mobile devices are pushing the MEMS market to grow faster than the overall IC market. According to industry analyst firm, Yole Development, the MEMS components market grew 17% in 2011 while the semiconductor IC market grew only 4%. One of the key growth drivers to all this growth is the demand for motion processing in mobile devices. As the demand for smartphones, tablet computers and other consumer intensifies, the MEMS market will grow and expand from its traditional industrial and automotive roots. This new growth is good news but also brings new challenges.
Wider adoption in the consumer electronics space means MEMS companies will have a whole new set of demands to meet such as faster time to market requirements and more aggressive cost pressures. This puts pressure on the design process and causes MEMS companies to need to adopt a modern development strategy and efficient design solution to be sure to be able to capitalize on the opportunities ahead.
Coventor is positioned to help MEMS companies leverage the opportunities sparked by the consumerization of the industry.
MEMS+ model of a 3 axis Gyroscope that illustrates new MEMS+ features. The model is comprised of 4 flexible plates formed from two pairs of mirrored meshes attached to electrodes. These plates are displayed semi-transparently, to highlight the underlying electrodes (Source: Chipworks, "Motion sensing in the iPhone 4: MEMS Gyroscope". Y. Loke, STMicroelectronics, Semicon West 2013)
Fig. 2. Silicon spin qubit centered in the dotted circle, control and readout signals (M, P, R, T, and Q) are shown in the inset. Simplified schematics of the quantum point contact and corollary circuits are shown. The voltage source is implemented as a digital-to-analog converter at room temperature. (Taken from [6])