According to New Estimations, the Market for MEMS in Mobile Communications Will Reach 750 M$ in 2009

Business Wire, Jan 30, 2006

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c31830) has announced the addition of "Mems4Mobile 06": Updated Analysis of the Applications and Markets of MEMS in Mobile Communications to their offering.

In 2005, the first report on the analysis of the MEMS applications for the mobile phone industry was released. Since this first analysis, a lot of things happened on the market.

MEMS devices for mobile phones include:

--Silicon microphone: now at least 2 companies have devices available (Knowles Acoustics and SonionMEMS). The market has reached more than 95 M. units in 2005, 15% higher than our expectations

--3D accelerometers: for this application also, the market has increased very rapidly with the new use of the inertial sensors, especially on the Japanese market (for GPS positioning) and in Korea (active logo)

--6 DOF IMU: more and more interest is seen from handset manufacturers having an inertial measurement unit (IMU) for high end mobile phone

--Gyroscope for camera stabilisation and GPS: still under development, as predicted, with a product introduction in 2007 at the earliest

--Microfuel cell: product introduction announcements in 2007 have been made by several Japanese companies. This was in line with our last year estimation. Volume business should start in 2008. MEMS will be a key technology for the fuel cell but also for several other key devices, like microvalves or gaz detectors

--Chemical and Biochip: personal weather station and health care monitor

--RF MEMS: still only one type of product on the market (FBAR from Agilent, Infineon and other companies) with very strong growth of the unit sold... but with a very strong decrease of the price. Another device announced is the replacement of the quartz oscillator by the MEMS based oscillator, starting at the end of 2006

--Enhanced auto focus and micro zoom: now several companies are proposing MEMS based devices, including Varioptic which is the only company close to production; a spin off from Philips named Laquavista has just been created in order to industrialize the electro-wetting technologies from Philips for displays.

MEMS devices are slowly entering step into the mobile phone business and they are key devices to leverage these new functions. Linked to that, the main industrial companies are now entering the MEMS fields to take part in this growing business. According to new estimations, the market will reach 750 M$ in 2009.

Compared to the last estimation, the market in units is growing much faster than expected but at the same time, the market in value is lower than expected: it is now thought that the 2008 market will be in the range of 550 M$ (compared to last year's estimation of 620 M$).

Report benefits for suppliers to MEMS manufacturers:

--Provides a complete analysis of current developments for mobile phone applications

--Highlights the hottest potential customers, i.e. who's working on what devices?

--Helps define commercialization opportunities in relation to the roadmap, the technical bottlenecks and customers' needs

Report benefits for MEMS manufacturers:

--Highlights markets to target with in-depth analysis of when and how to access that business

--Gives quantitative component volume figures by year

--Helps you define the right commercialization approach in terms of specifications and mobile phone manufacturers

--Presents the product roadmap expected for the next 4 years

The companies under analysis in this report are the following:

1. Accelerometer and gyroscope: Analog Devices, Memsic, Kionix, STM, Oki, Hitachi, Fujitsu, BEI Sensors, Murata, Freescale, MEW, Seiko Epson ...

2. Silicon microphone: Knowles, SonionMems, Akustica ...

3. Micro fuel cell: STM, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Sony...

4. RF MEMS: STM, Philips, APM, Discera...

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c31830