1. MEMS or Microelectromechanical Systems are microsystems with both electric and mechanical functions. Built with the same advanced techniques that make today's integrated circuits, MEMS are everywhere around us. The tech is miraculous but the industry has long struggled with several significant economic issues.
2. Global Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) Market Report 2022: Market to Reach $16.9 Billion by 2026 - Consumer Electronics Segment is Expected to Account for $10.3 Billion
APPLICATIONS
1. It would not be until 1979 however when MEMS hit the big time. Hewlett-Packard used silicon micro-machining techniques to develop a printer inkjet nozzle to enable Thermal Inkjet Technology. Such nozzles would probably be the technology’s single most successful application up until then. Inkjet technology works by first rapidly heating up ink to something like 100 degrees Celsius. This creates tiny bubbles, which pushes out the ink through a micro-machined nozzle onto the paper. When the bubbles collapse, it creates a vacuum that sucks in more ink.
2. The nozzles themselves aren't mechanical - they don’t move - but MEMS technology helped create them. And their tiny size allowed HP to put a whole bunch of them together in order to increase printer resolution.
3. In 1991, Analog Devices created the first commercial acceleration MEMS sensor - less than 1 square centimeter large. It looks really cool, with a number of capacitive sense "fingers" about 60 microns deep. The fingers are attached to a mass which moves when acceleration happens. The touching fingers change their capacitive value, which then is sensed by the chip and relayed to the relevant ECU.
4. Analog Devices put this accelerometer and its accompanying electronics onto a single silicon chip - the ADXL-50. 50, because it was able to sense sudden accelerations of up to 50 Gs. A complete monolithic acceleration monitoring system that is smaller, more reliable, and costs far less to make - $5 as opposed to the old system's $20 to $100 cost. These accelerometer sensors contributed to the widespread adoption of airbags in cars. Your standard car has since incorporated dozens of MEMS-based sensor devices inside your anti-lock brakes, active suspension, navigation control, rollover detection, and so on. Over 60 million MEMS-based airbag sensors alone have been made and sold.
5. The pressure sensor would be the next big application of MEMS technology. They are used to monitor blood pressure in hospitals, connecting to a patient's intravenous line.
6. Early external blood pressure sensors cost over $600 and had to be sterilized and recalibrated for each reuse. The MEMS version cost a fraction of that - just $10, the majority of the cost going to the packaging - which made it disposable and far easier to use in the medical field. Mechanically, they are quite simple. Using MEMS technology, you craft silicon into a thin membrane which serves as a diaphragm. Then you take four small stress-sensitive polysilicon resistors or piezoresistors and place them along the diaphragm's edges. The diaphragm is then suspended over a vacuum cavity to form an absolute pressure sensor.
7. When pressure occurs, it changes the silicon band structure and changes the resistivity of the crystal. This is sensed and the signals are delivered to the relevant parties. Today, the medical MEMS-based sensor industry is worth over $6 billion, and blood pressure sensors make up the single largest piece of that.
8. Manufacturers eventually built on the initial pressure sensor and accelerometer designs to create a variety of versatile, low-power sensors. And these inertial MEMS-based sensors as they are called are inside all of today's hottest consumer electronics.
9. Take the Nintendo Switch. Inside the main console and controllers are ultra-low power inertial sensors with gyroscope and accelerometer capabilities - the STMicroelectronics SH627. MEMS micromachining technologies are also used in other consumer electronics products like visual displays, optical switches, and more. The latter is pretty interesting - where micromirrors are used to redirect light from one optical fiber to another fiber.
MAKING MEMS
1. The idea behind most commercial MEMS production workflows is to use high volume IC techniques - like for instance, photolithography and etching - to add or remove layers on a 2D substrate until you produce a 3D shape. However, there is no one-size-fits-all methodology for the industry. Thus, companies have tried other approaches to more economically produce and machine MEMS. For instance, electrochemical micromachining.
2. First introduced as a manufacturing technology for low-end PCB boards, ECM can create a MEMS by locally and selectively etching metals with an electrode tip. Other micro-machining methods include laser beam machining, electrodischarge machining, and LIGA (Lithographie Galano- formung Abformung) - which stands for something I cannot pronounce.
3. Better machining costs are necessary, because it sets a high hurdle for payback and profit. However, large-scale MEMS fabrication is just one part of the ecosystem. Others significantly contribute to cost and production issues: The design and the back end steps.
MEMS PACKAGING
1. Testing and packaging are described as the back end of semiconductor production process - where you take the finished die and turn it into a chip for inserting into the final product. Unheralded, they are nonetheless vital. Looking at typical pricing, the majority of the price for a MEMS-based sensor comes from the packaging - 75-80% of the final cost. Which is a big reversal from the situation for integrated chips.
2. For instance, let us look at a pressure sensor for something like the heating and ventilation market or HVAC. An HVAC pressure sensor is typically priced at about $20 to $30. The majority of that comes from the packaging rather than the actual die. A raw working die from a foundry without its packaging - and unusable by the way - costs less than 50 cents a piece.
3. The issue is fundamental and philosophical. An IC is a system in of itself. Thus, packaging serves a secondary support role - protecting it and interfacing it with the outside world. So most of the time, you put it into a plastic or ceramic case.
4. MEMS on the hand, has to intimately interact with the outside world. You cannot throw a MEMS pressure sensor into a hard plastic case. How is it going to sense the pressure? The packaging for each MEMS die has to be remade for its particular circumstances. A pressure sensor MEMS needs different packaging than a micro-mirror array. A microfluidic MEMS, different from an electrostatic actuator. So on. This adds substantial cost and engineering cost to the work.
MEMS GLOBAL MARKET FORECAST
1. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) estimated at US$11.5 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$16.9 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 6.7% over the analysis period.
2. Consumer Electronics is projected to grow at a 7.3% CAGR to reach US$10.3 Billion by the end of the analysis period. After a thorough analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the Automotive segment is readjusted to a revised 5.9% CAGR for the next 7-year period.
3. This segment currently accounts for a 15.1% share of the global Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) market. Consumer electronics segment accounts for the most share due to the growing use of MEMS technology in smartphones, tablets, laptops, wearable devices, digital cameras, gaming consoles, media players, and portable navigation devices during the past few years.
4. Advantages such as less mass, small size, low cost, and low power consumption contribute to increased adoption of MEMS devices in telecommunication and consumer electronics industries. MEMS technology is being increasingly preferred in the automotive industry as well for vehicle security systems including the airbag systems.
5. The increasing incorporation of MEMS sensors in several consumer electronic devices is another major factor driving growth in the global market. Factors such as increasing demand for smart devices and the growing adoption of IoT in semiconductors are driving growth. There is significant potential for growth in the MEMS devices market from the healthcare sector.
6. MEMS technology is useful in diagnostic applications, medical tools such as insulin micropumps and endoscopic pills, and medical research. The segment is expected to get a boost, primarily gaining from government initiatives, technological advancements, and rising healthcare expenditure.
7. Rise in demand for vehicle automation, growing trend towards driverless cars, increase in the number of electric cars, and intense competition within the automotive industry are some of the major factors expected to drive demand for sensors in the automotive industry.
U.S. & CHINA MARKET
1. The Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) market in the U.S. is estimated at US$2.1 Billion in the year 2021. The country currently accounts for a 17.28% share in the global market. China, the world's second largest economy, is forecast to reach an estimated market size of US$3.9 Billion in the year 2026 trailing a CAGR of 8% through the analysis period.
2. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 5.2% and 5.7% respectively over the analysis period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 6% CAGR while Rest of European market (as defined in the study) will reach US$320.5 Million by the end of the analysis period.
3. Asia-Pacific is the largest MEMS market. In Asia Pacific, countries such as Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea account for major contribution to product manufacturing and process control. These countries are home to some prominent market vendors as well as contract fabrications companies such as TSMC.
INDUSTRIAL SEGMENT
1. MEMS technology allows combining electronics with the mechanical elements in devices such as valves, actuators, and the sensors embedded in semiconductor chips. This ability drives increased adoption of MEMS in almost every industrial sector. Pressure sensors and inertial sensors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers are driving applications for MEMS technology in the industrial automation area.
2. In the global Industrial segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 5.92% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$994.7 Million in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$1.5 Billion by the close of the analysis period.
3. China will remain among the fastest growing in this cluster of regional markets. Led by countries such as Australia, India, and South Korea, the market in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach US$607.2 Million by the year 2026, while Latin America will expand at a 6.8% CAGR through the analysis period.
Source:
https://meet-global.bnext.com.tw/articles/view/47703
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/01/26/2373256/28124/en/Global-Micro-Electromechanical-Systems-MEMS-Market-Report-2022-Market-to-Reach-16-9-Billion-by-2026-Consumer-Electronics-Segment-is-Expected-to-Account-for-10-3-Billion.html
